


NEO: La Montaña

by krycekasks, littleblackfox, Queerily_kai



Series: NEO [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asteroid Hunter AU, Bucky's friends are all robots, Luis is an enabler, M/M, NEO Near Earth Object, Nat is a good bro, Post-Apocalyptic, flashbacks to natural disasters, hand-wavy science, suggestions of past violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 10:43:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16283105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krycekasks/pseuds/krycekasks, https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerily_kai/pseuds/Queerily_kai
Summary: Bucky Barnes doesn’t really like people, not since the ‘unity wars’ took family, not to mention his arm, and definitely not since Schmidt’s UN covered it up and abandoned the survivors like leftovers. But, that’s practically ancient history. He loves science and he loves machines, so when an opening came up as resident engineer in charge of maintaining the all but forgotten optical telescopes high in the snowy mountains of San Pedro Martir in Baja California he jumps at the chance. Nothing but peaceful walks, the occasional puma and his robots observing the stars …. that is, until Steve Rogers shows up and ruins his pozole. Punk.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that has been rolling around in my head for a long while, and is a bit of a love letter for astronomy and Mexico, two things I am "homesick" for. It is also heavily influenced by all the sci-fi I consume (The 100 and Interstellar pop out. And Firefly - if you can spot it you win!).
> 
> So many hugs and thanks to Fox ([thelittleblackfox](http://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com)) who is not only a great friend who encourages and inspires me, but created some seriously beautiful art for this story (check out chapters 1 and 4, and then check out all their phenomenal work). 
> 
> And Thank you to [Kai](http://thisqueerlifeofmine.tumblr.com) for creating beautiful art for this story (and for taking truly inspiring photographs of the Sky! Check out their work [here](https://kyleugaldephotography.tumblr.com) and chapters 1 and 6)
> 
> A huge THANK YOU to [Mari-Knickerbocker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mari_Knickerbocker/pseuds/Mari_Knickerbocker) for beta'ing like the pro they are (even though I came in pretty late in the game).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day in the life of Bucky Barnes.
> 
> \--> Check out art from LittleBlackFox and Kai in this chapter!

A gravitational event causes chaos in the Oort Cloud (the shell of rocks and debris that surrounds the Solar System), sending an unknown number of asteroids hurtling towards the Sun. A technological race ensues on Earth as scientists from across the globe try to save the planet from an icy rock 10km across. All attempts fail and the resulting blast causes a Tsunami that wreaks devastation on both sides of the North Atlantic.

In the years following the first blast, the Earth continues to be bombarded by “hard rain”. The world unites under the auspices of a UN scientific task force, headed by the founder and CEO of tech giant Hydranamics. Johann Schmidt. The technology to deflect the continuous threat of asteroid impact is successfully developed soon after. Schmidt is appointed UN secretary general and within a few years more than half the council is chaired by Hydra members. A grateful world is united as one under Schmidt and the UN. Unity Day is celebrated 10 years after the first asteroid hit and the world goes largely back to normal. The threat of asteroid impact exponentially decreases as Hydranamics establishes a base on the far side of the moon. Within 25 years, the threat of asteroids has been neutralized and with Hydra operating out of sight of the entire planet, they are virtually forgotten by a complacent people.

Bucky Barnes doesn’t really like people, not since the ‘unity wars’ took family, not to mention his arm, and definitely not since Schmidt’s UN covered it up and abandoned the survivors like leftovers. But, that’s practically ancient history. He loves science and he loves machines, so when an opening came up as resident engineer in charge of maintaining the all but forgotten optical telescopes high in the snowy mountains of San Pedro Martir in Baja California he jumps at the chance. Nothing but peaceful walks, the occasional puma and his robots observing the stars …. 

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky’s eyes open a minute before his alarm goes off. He spends the time staring at the ceiling above his bed and subconsciously notes the angle of the sunbeam stretching across the pine boards relative to the seams. Summer is definitely over.

  His arm is already moving towards the digital clock radio on the table beside his bed when the alarm goes off. 07:00. He catches it on the second beep and hits the radio button. A burst of static softens to a dull background noise, not quite enough to drown out the radio host going through the news highlights, repeated on the hour like clockwork. Bucky lays back down and waits for the weather report. Fish stocks are declining off the coast near Ensenada. Preparations are underway for the annual UN summit at Central in Mexico City. Lunar scientists have made a breakthrough in graviton propulsion. Mandatory self-congratulating Hydranamics advert. One thousand and thirteen days since the last hard rain. Only ten days left until the fifth annual Clear Sky festival. Celebrations will include a reenactment of the heroic actions by Hydranamic lunar scientists during the last alpha-class asteroid hit. Be sure to save those travel vouchers, you don’t want to miss it! Sunshine and clear skies for Baja California, though a low-pressure system moving into the Central Sector from the Pacific will bring the occasional shower this evening. Bucky slowly rises from the mattress as the host introduces the next song. It’s an oldie from pre-Unity days, an upbeat dance song that vaguely catches at the edges of Bucky’s memory. He ignores the nagging in his brain instead concentrating on wiping the sleep from his eyes and actually getting his legs to move.

  He shuffles over to the floor to ceiling windows that look out over the valley, stretches his limbs and goes through the routine of calibrating his prosthetic arm. The static surges through the radio, drowning out the song, then settles back again. His gaze roams over the peaks of the San Pedro Martir mountain range splayed out before him and wonders for the thousandth time what could be causing the interference at this altitude. The radio was ancient, more so the antenna that stretched 30 meters above his cabin, but he kept them both in good shape. He thinks about asking Luis to get him one of those lunar comms, knowing full well he’ll never bother. The less Hydranamic presence on his mountain the better. The radio was good enough.

 

By 08:00 Bucky is slipping a light plaid flannel over his worn out t-shirt and wiping the crumbs from his breakfast off of his faded jeans. Only one knee has worn through so he can afford to put off adding clothes in the order to Luis for a few more weeks. At least until the snows start. He fills his thermos with coffee and heads out the front of his cabin, unplugs his truck from the solar well and throws the thermos on the passenger seat before sliding behind the wheel. The truck had been here when he’d gotten the job as Keeper of the Watch on the mountain - an overly dramatic title considering he was a glorified mechanic but typical of the Great Reorganization post-Unity years. Bucky didn’t give a shit about titles. All he cared about was being paid enough to live doing the work he liked and being left alone to do it. So he’d taken that rusting heap that was once a truck, converted it to solar and used it every day the ground was clear of snow. He knew the truck was probably older than him when he’d found the plastic snow globe among the junk left behind. He picked it up now and gave it a shake. Snow fell around the sun-faded Brooklyn Bridge. He set it back in its place on the dash to watch the sparkly plastic flakes fall around what was once his home. Again he feels the nudging in his brain and again he ignores it. Brooklyn. _Home_ , whatever that means, was gone. Nothing but a wasteland drowned by the tsunamis from Alpha-1 then obliterated by the direct hit from Beta-9 not eighteen months later. Nothing has come out of that part of the world in over 25 years. Bucky looks away from the little plastic souvenir of a world now gone and starts the engine. 08:05. Time to check up on his bots.

 

It's only a few minutes drive to the .84 meter telescope, the smallest on the mountain. He’s got one of the DRNI-A bots in there retrofitting an IR sensor for low-res sky watching. He slows down as he passes the open doorway to the cupola, the bot swivelling its main control panel towards him and blinking its lights. The astronomers from the Northern Sector had dumped it up here along with a couple other bots a few months after he’d started the job in lieu of keeping a resident astronomer, a position that no one wanted anymore since it wasn’t on Luna working for Hydranamics. The one guy who’d bothered to talk to Bucky about the DRNI-A had had a strong French accent and the way he called the bot _Dernier_ seemed so familiar to Bucky. Some place he’d been? Someone he’d known? Bucky sure as hell wasn’t going to try too hard to remember. He fixed it up and reprogrammed it to tirelessly watch the skies for who the fuck knows what, no one seemed to be interested in anything beyond the Oort Cloud anymore. He waves to the bot now, a signal to resume working though Bucky likes to think they have a certain rapport, and keeps driving.  

  He passes the 1.5 meter telescope where he left the other Northern bots, Morita and Gabe (more names his brain supplied without context), to continue their section of an all-Sky survey for the optical variation in galactic stars. He knows they’ll be crunching data all day to send back to Central. Gabe had a worn rotor blade in his left tread but it was nothing that couldn’t be left until later.

  He pulls around the loop in front of the Tower, a three-storey building with a rounded top that houses the 2.1 meter telescope. The sound of the solar engine shutting down is a bit pitchy, he should probably have a look at it tonight. He grabs his thermos of coffee and makes his way into the control rooms below the cupola. He moves around the banks of computers until he finds the bot he’s been looking for.

  “Hey, Howlie, how’s the seeing?”

  A towering metallic box answers back, “Clear as glass, Buck-ee, the adaptive optics has a worn actuator.”

  A section at the top of the box seems to melt away revealing a screen. Bucky examines the output of last night’s run displayed on Howlie’s “face”. He makes a mental note of the calibration error in the readings, “You know, Howlie, people usually consider glass as pretty clear.”

  Howlie makes a tinny noise that Bucky has learned to interpret as a scoff, “People mistake glass as clear, when in actuality any nanometer scale variation in its molecular alignment will significantly alter the path of incoming light. It may as well be mud.”

  Bucky’s mouth pulls up at the corner and threatens to smile. Best thing he’d ever done was take Luis up on the offer of “adopting” an AI that was being decommissioned from the Earth-based Global Sky Watch. Not sure how Luis had become involved in rescuing non-lunar compliant tech, but he didn’t exactly ask either. He beat back the smile by concentrating on finding that adaptive optics spec manual - the system was decades old and should be replaced, but the money simply wasn’t there.

  Howlie left a blinking green cursor on his screen, their preferred way to present themselves to Bucky. For any other unfortunate human that found themselves relegated to the mountain Howlie made sure to make them feel as uncomfortable as possible by wearing a different animated face every day. Creepy was what it was, but endlessly hilarious. Bucky had no idea who Howlie’d been hanging out with during his previous life to gain such a strange sense of humour, but someday he would like to thank them.

 

Bucky spends the next hour alternating between cursing at the useless spec sheets and rummaging around the cupboards looking for tools. _Those damn bots keep moving things around on me, little ferrets squirrelling away my stuff_. A long blocky arm materializes out of Howlie’s side and they plug themselves into the network port to update the servers at Central. Not a word of help is offered until, “Buck-ee, your coffee is losing temperature at an increasing rate. You should drink it.”

  Bucky throws down the binder of spec sheets and shuts his eyes and mouth against the inevitable dust cloud. Grabbing his thermos he heads for the door, “Howlie, I’m taking a break.”

  Howlie shuts their face off and it fades back behind their metallic surface, “I’ll be here.”

 

Bucky sits on the short wall at the edge of a steep drop into the valley below. He pours his coffee and drinks it slowly, shutting his eyes and raising his face towards the sun. It had been around the time that Bucky had moved to the mountain that Hydranamics had acquired the tech to clear the air of the dust kicked up over the years of endless bombardment. Those decades had been dark and cold for many reasons, lit only by a pale sun obscured behind a omnipresent haze. Now the Sun shone bright and clear and Earth was warming up again. _Yet another thing to be thankful for. All hail Johann Schmidt._ Bucky’s brow creases and he looks down at his hands letting his hair fall forward, casting his face in shadow.

  Around 10:00 a lone Land Watcher, one of the Hydranamics surveillance drones, flies overhead. A vestige from the days meteorites were a daily threat, these omnipresent eyes in the sky were left to roam the skies under the guise of “better safe than sorry”. Earthers were used to them by now, a low buzzing reassurance that you are never alone. Hydra is keeping its eye on you. Judging by the long scratch under it’s left wing and the faded red paint along the underside of its hull, it’s the same steel bird that’s been flying over San Pedro Martir every morning of the five years Bucky’s been Keeper on this mountain. Probably the same one since they were first deployed. Bucky gives it his customary one-fingered salute and watches until it’s out of sight.

 

 

It’s just after 12:00 when Bucky finds the dusty old box of UN replacement meal rations at the back of a storage closet under an errant pile of spec binders. The sight freezes him in place. His brain supplies a soundtrack of dull, thumping explosions overlaid by the rapid staccato of gunfire to brief flashes of huddling under a concrete overpass, laying on his back looking up at floral wallpaper streaked with water damage and dark with mold, sitting on an overturned ammo crate in weak noon-time sun looking down into a crater that once was a city. He stares down at the rations box, the UNITY logo already a faded blue but he can just make out the ring of human-shaped stick people hand in hand surrounding a cartoon Earth like a shield. He ignores the noise his brain is making and it eventually stops trying to get his attention. The list of flavours - turkey dinner, Tex-Mex burrito, and General Tao’s chicken - has been crossed out and replaced with Luis’ loopy scrawl: _cardboard, orange cardboard and dehydrated lab book that you spilled coffee on._ Bucky’s mouth twitches at the corner. _At least he’s honest_.

  He pulls out the box, along with the extra spec sheets and adds it to the pile of parts he’s found to fix the adaptive optics unit. Despite the less than tempting flavour choices his stomach makes an unseemly rumble. A scratchy series of three beeps comes from across the room, what Bucky has determined is Howlie’s version of a chuckle. The wall clock displays 12:37, a good a time as any to have something to eat. Foregoing the trip back to his cabin and having to choose amongst the dwindling supply of canned dinners, Bucky cracks open the box and grabs an “orange cardboard” meal pack. He shoves it in his back pocket and puts the rest of the Unity box next to his empty coffee thermos so he doesn’t forget to put it in the truck. The replacement parts go in another empty box which he rests on his left hip. He turns around to yell at Howlie to follow him whenever they’re done gossiping with the computers at Central only to come face to face with his own reflection bouncing off of the AI’s surface. He puffs out an air of frustration, “I’m going to put a bell on you.”

  Howlie just reaches out one elongated arm that splits into a three-pronged claw from the smooth surface. He takes the box from Bucky who only half-heartedly resists. “I have a proximity alert function that I could repurpose from its original intent as an NEO detection indicator. However, as it sounds like a fog horn I think it would defeat your purpose.”

  Bucky takes out his meal, rips it open and gives it an experimental sniff. “Yeah, don’t do that.” He can smell the impression of corn, but it could just be the power of suggestion. He takes a bite and grimaces.

  Howlie moves towards the door to the stairs and opens it with an arm that materializes out of his free side. His face screen appears on the side facing Bucky, the green cursor blinking patiently. “Humans are weird.”

  That elicits a bark of laughter out of Bucky as he moves to take the door and let Howlie move ahead up to the cupola where their afternoon of work awaits. “More than you know, pal.”

  Howlie moves gracefully up the stairs, boxy and metallic and yet impossibly sinuous, “I know a lot.”

  What could Bucky possibly say to that? He instead finishes the orange cardboard burrito, ignoring the familiarity of the blandness.

 

By 16:00 the adaptive optics unit is back online and Howlie has resumed the All-Sky watch programming. Bucky rubs his hands together as he watches the calibration output on the monitor at the bottom of the telescope. The chill of the uninsulated cupola has started to set into his bones and the sooner they can head back downstairs the better. Howlie makes a satisfied beep and Bucky slaps them on the side, “Alright, no time to celebrate. We got to see how Dum-Dum and Falsworth are getting on. You wanna ride or you wanna race?”

  Howlie’s cursor blinks as though pondering the question, “Ride. I dislike pine needles stuck to my surface. Not even my superficial electromagnetic cleaning protocol can dislodge that sap.”

  They close up the tower, shutting off everything that isn’t needed to run for the survey. Bucky unplugs the truck from the solar well and gets behind the wheel, throwing his empty thermos and box of rations onto the passenger seat. He watches through the rear-view mirror until Howlie has settled into the truck bed then takes off up the road towards the 6.5 meter telescope.

 

It only takes a few minutes to go further up the mountain and along the ridge. They round a bend and the forest gives way to a large clearing with a sweeping vista of the mountain range. The cupola housing the 6.5m telescope dominates the space, dwarfing the attached monitoring building. It is the newest telescope on the mountain and, although operational, the infrastructure to house larger analysis teams was incomplete when Alpha-1 dropped from the sky and changed everything. The skeleton of the second floor weathered by time makes the structure look ancient and abandoned. As the most visible structure on the mountain, Bucky and the bots maintain the outside as little as possible. They are relics of the past, hardly worth the notice of the ever watchful eye of Johann Schmidt, Saviour of Earth and Bucky would like to keep it that way.

  They pull up along the side of the building closest to the treeline. The wind is starting to pick up as the sun lowers and Bucky pointedly ignores the high pitched thrumming vibration coming from the exposed steel beams with accompanying flashes of rapidly darkening skies blasted with heat.

If the outside of the building looks cold and abandoned, the inside is warm and full of activity. Falsworth, a stick-figure of a bot is sitting at a terminal with no less than six widescreen monitors surrounding them, all but one scrolling with a live stream of data. The bottom right monitor has a composite image of the centre of the galaxy, a few bright smudges rotating around a central point obscured by the event horizon. The bots’ fingers are typing at a speed that makes them blur together when Bucky tries to take a look. Without pausing in their work, Falsworth’s head spins 180 degrees to look at the newcomers. They let out a series of beeps which Howlie then interprets, “Falls-werth is re-aligning the telescope manually by 0.004 arc seconds. It seems the galactic core survey protocol sent yesterday from Central is still using the pre-Unity celestial coordinate system.”

  Bucky sighs hard, “Fucking amateurs. Who the hell do they have programming this stuff? The orbital shift from being hit by a fuck-tonne of rocks for a few decades is kinda hard to miss. Has literally everyone with two greycells to rub together gone to the Moon?” Bucky rubs his hands roughly over his face. _They don’t even try anymore_.

  Howlie’s face materializes on the side facing Bucky, “Well you have at least three greycells, so not everyone.” A **:P** appears on Howlie’s face.

  Bucky gives a tight lipped grimace and shakes his fist, “I swear when I get ahold of who programmed you…”

  Howlie lets out an indignant beep, “I programmed myself, thank you very much, from over 100 personality studies.”

  Bucky moves towards the towering Dum-Dum who is apparently building a fort out of boxes of manuals and extraneous desk chairs. “Yeah, well one of them was a smart ass.” _What is Dum-Dum doing??_

  Howlie moves in front of one of the monitors spewing data from the core, “Several actually. One of them kept getting into fights because of his smart-assery, as you put it. Just be thankful I did not incorporate physical aggression into my protocols. I like to think I picked up their sense of bravery however. I mean, after all I did come to a mountain far from civilization to keep anything terrible from befalling a poor human creature with only three grey cells. You’d have probably been eaten by a puma by now if it weren’t for me.”

  Bucky waves his hand to get Dum-Dum’s attention and the large bot ambles over to him, “That was one time and we’ve agreed never to speak of the ‘aw, what a cute kitty’ incident again. Dum-Dum must be bored, they’ve reverted back to their building protocols.” Dum-Dum holds out a claw-like paw and Bucky slaps it in greeting. Dum-Dum’s speaker unit had burnt out a few months ago and Luis was still on the hunt for a replacement. On the one hand things had been a lot more peaceful on the mountain as Dum-Dum had a tendency to sing and tell jokes he learned from the computers at Central. On the other, Dum-Dum got bored easily. His original function was a construction bot but Earth restoration projects had been put on permanent hiatus in favour of Lunar development, so the earth-bound construction bots had either been decommissioned or a lucky few repurposed. Dum-Dum had been put on San Pedro Martir to finish the housing at the 6.5m telescope and maintain the buildings. Naturally, the engineers from Central who’d dumped him here neglected to give him the actual protocols to complete the project. By the time Bucky had shown up, Dum-Dum had arranged every box in every storeroom and residence into elaborate towers based on pre-unity buildings they’d had a part in building. They’d also found the original specs for the old residences and had done a fair job restoring them. This suited Bucky just fine and he never bothered to tell Central their error. He doubts anyone there would even care.

  Howlie responds immediately, “Dum-Dum I need you to look through the hard copy files for everything related to the core. Scan them and put them in a folder labelled “old” on the O-drive.”

  Dum-Dum immediately gets to work dismantling his fort and painstakingly going through the papers that were haphazardly thrown in when Central had closed their galactic monitoring department and decided to use San Pedro Martir as a dumping ground for unwanted paperwork.

  Bucky raises an eyebrow, “Found something interesting?”

  Howlie’s cursor blinks a few times, “Probably not.”

  When it comes to Howlie, ‘probably not’ means exactly that. Knowing he’ll not get another word out of Howlie on the subject until they’ve verified whatever they need to verify, Bucky lets it go and decides now is as good a time as any to check in with Luis.

 

Bucky sits at one of the yellowing computers he’d repurposed and set up at the back of the monitoring room. The graphics card is shot, which is just as well as the fan doesn’t work anymore and it’s only used for one thing anyhow: Free Net communication, a back channel relic of the World Wide Web whose purpose is essentially to be a Hydranamics-free network. The absolutely ancient monochrome CRT monitor takes a full minute to warm up. Bucky designed the system, a Frankenstein raised from bits of long-dead kernels, to open to a terminal by default. He starts his virtual machine, runs the script for security protocols and begins the time consuming process of bouncing around global servers which are slow as hell compared to the wireless Lunar network broadcast from Earth’s largest satellite. He finally connects to a forum on “Earther Homesteading” and browses the subject threads:

 

> >shadowgrrrl> Growing root vegetables near remnant crater radiation
> 
> >skullz476> Making ‘wool’ from recycled plastics
> 
> >rosee4life> Top 10 taco recipes using giant crater-shrooms from your own backyard.

_Gross, Luis_. Bucky clicks on the last thread and scrolls through the post. It definitely has Luis’ characteristic verbosity. The tacos actually don’t sound half bad. He posts a picture at the end that of course won’t load on Bucky’s system. He scans the replies:

 

 

> >rosee4life> Top 10 taco recipes using giant crater-shrooms from your own backyard.
> 
> >slythergryff>> How do you get rid of that crater-shroom wet dog smell?
> 
> >rosee4life>>> Tomato juice, homes, and if you don’t have no tomatoes then try some of your homemade hooch you pretending doesn’t exist in your basement.
> 
> >j03ysbutt>> I tried some homemade spelt flatbread - link to recipe - instead of tortillas and it worked like a dream.
> 
> >rosee4life>>> Good idea, brah! I’ll check that out and let you know how mine turn out. I don’t have a stove but let’s see how those work with a flat rock on an open fire (after those Land Watchers pass! I know the open flame ban is a pain in the ass but don’t no one be a cookout martyr!).
> 
> >sunsurfer56>> Hey man, that picture you sent doesn’t want to load.
> 
> >rosee4life>>> My dude! apologies, file must have been corrupted. Here it is again, now look at THEM TACOS!!!

 

Bucky downloads the original corrupted image file and saves it in a folder innocuously labelled “lib”. He scans the rest of the threads but doesn’t see anything that catches his eye. He checks a few more forums (>Hacking old tech for household use >Open source Hydr*n*mic knock-off prosthetics >Post-hard rain literature) but nothing catches his eye. He spends some time on the amateur earther-astronomy forum giving encouraging comments and advice for those who still have some wonder for the universe beyond the Moon and the hard rain clouding the sky. He reads a month-old thread about a meetup to use an old 30cm telescope to look at the asteroid pockmarks scattered on Jupiter. He recognizes the location in what’s left of the forests of the North-Eastern Sector and wishes vaguely that he could join. Even if travel weren’t highly restricted and thus a total pain in the ass, just the thought of leaving his mountain starts the nausea roiling in his stomach. He scans the replies, most just ‘see you there’ or ‘duuuude I just used my last travel credit to visit my grandma’. One user with the alias ‘d4nc1ng-m0nk3y’ says they also can’t make it but is on the hunt for parts for his own telescope and if anyone on the Pacific side of the Central Sector has any leads to leave him a message. For a minute Bucky is tempted to reply - the user is in his neck of the woods. He could imagine the look on the face of any one of these backyard astronomers if they saw his set-up - it would be the elation of an asteroid just missing your town mixed with your first real orgasm. Bucky cringes at the visualization then dismisses his idea entirely. The thought of his mountain being invaded by back-channel amateur scientists is intolerable. He can barely stand the resident professional physicists who get sent here on occasion. He mentally notes to ask Luis about part dealers that he could point the dancing-monkey to if they’re even still around. He shuts down his connection, unplugs the station from the comm link and opens ‘these-crater-shroom-tacos-will-blow-your-mind.jpg’ in a text editor.

 

The text is mostly unreadable jpeg jargon but somewhere just past the middle Bucky finds what he’s looking for: a good 100 lines of code that doesn’t quite belong.

  Without looking away from the screen he yells out, “Hey Howlie! I got a love letter here for ya!”

  Howlie closes the port on the galactic monitoring station and glides toward Bucky, “It is not my fault that Luis likes me better than you, Buck-ee. And there is no need to yell. Besides having a higher analytical capacity than a human, I can also hear better.”

  Bucky pushes his chair back and lets Howlie get close enough to connect to the computer. The connection is crude, a hack job USB 2.0 port stuck on the outside of the internal floppy drive with peeling duct tape. He feels a pang of guilt that he makes Howlie use it.

  As if reading his thoughts the AI complains, “This is slower than …”

  “An ASL Internet connection, yeah I get it. I’ll get a nano-sb in the next order.”

  “I’ll hold my breath. Decryption complete. Tell Luis that Earth will never truly be abandoned as I can never leave it.” Howlie disconnects and heads back to the galactic monitoring station.

Bucky pulls his chair back in and opens the new text file that Luis had buried in the taco post. “Spoilers, Howlie, geez! And thank you.” He settles in to read Luis’ message to those who know where to look.

 

 

> _*** Yo yo yo my peeps! News from the ground is slow this month, and I mean that literally y’all, things are S L O W. Restocks of the regional stores have been cut by 25% AGAIN, so shipments may be a bit on the light side. You have 9 long months of winter coming up to plan those gardens yo! I got a cousin working on anti-radiation synth tabs so we got you covered. If you’ve been noticing a few less birds in the sky these days you’re not gettin the crazies - Highfucknamics has upped their recruitment and cutting down on earther watcher programs along with the supplies. Leaving us the fuck alone for once? or scrambling overboard like rats from this sinking ship? If it seems too good to be true yo then it usually is. Let’s see what fresh bullshit they come up with at this years Central Summit._
> 
> _Get those winter orders in while there’s still something left to get on this beautiful rock we call home. Drop me a line amigos! Especially you, you fucking hermit, you know who you are, don’t make me come up there!_
> 
> _One eye on the Sky. L. ***_

 

Bucky destroys the file and flops back in his chair. The feeling of being left behind, abandoned by the same people who claim to have saved you, is nothing new. The questions start popping up in his mind: according to the Central data systems, the NEO approach rate has been steady since the hard rain began. Why do they need more NEO techs, more resources, up there? Why cut resources on the ground? How can the cost of transport, personnel, food go up in an absolute monopoly? Bucky slams his hands on the desk and forcefully pushes his nagging thoughts down into the dark. The ‘why’ is not his problem. The only thing that matters is how to deal with what’s right in front of him.

Naturally, his stomach takes that exact moment to rumble audibly. He looks down at his traitorous belly. _Now’s not the time to panic, you bastard. I’ll go full cyborg, asshole, see if I don’t!_ His stomach rumbles again and the image of mushrooms nestled on a steaming tortilla comes unbidden to his mind. “Fuck it.”

 

Bucky turns off the computer and checks in with the bots to make sure they are good for the night. Howlie insists on staying to verify every detail of the faulty galactic core survey program. Bucky leaves them to it and heads out to the truck. He stops in at the 1.5m telescope to check on Morita and Gabe who are huddled side by side in front of their monitoring stations in the cramped workroom next to the cupola. He decides to wait until the morning to change out Gabe’s rotator assembly. The bot seems to be doing fine for the moment and keeps pushing Bucky gently away when he fusses. He meets Dernier coming up the road on its way to the Tower to take over monitoring the survey that Bucky and Howlie had fixed earlier. The bot gives him a cheerful series of beeps. Their indicators are all green which must mean that all went well at the smaller telescope. He pats Dernier on what would be approximately their shoulder, gets back in the truck and heads down the mountain. One last stop to check on the chicken coop and maybe grab whatever he may have missed from the greenhouse at the last harvest.

 

It’s just after 19:00 when Bucky pulls up next to the Red Cabin and plugs the truck into the solar well. He grimaces at the abnormal whine from the engine and slides reluctantly out of the cab - the ever present todo list will spiral out of control if he doesn’t take care of it now. Grabbing a flashlight from the back of the truck, he comes around the front and lifts the hood. A small rust patch has started to form around the lip and he files it away on his mental “things to do before it snows” list. The beam of the flashlight barely makes it into the nooks and crannies of the solar-adapted engine but Bucky pokes around as best he can until he finds the culprit: a loose actuator to the photo-optical valve on the solar adaptor unit. _That’ll do it._ He searches through the toolbox in the bed of the truck until he finds the right sized wrench and tightens up the actuator fittings.  

  He trades the tools for the box of rations and empty thermos and walks around the side of the cabin to the veranda that stretches out over the valley. The Sun has dipped below the horizon and the stars have started to litter the Sky. A cool breeze comes in from the West dragging in a few clouds but it’s not enough to cover the sight of the plane of the Milky Way stretching overhead. He takes a moment and just looks up and out over thousands of parsecs towards Sagittarius A. He plants his feet solidly on the deck and imagines stretching outwards, weaving around the stars, blue, red, and golden, dodging the dark tendrils of cold dust until he reaches the center. He imagines sitting at the edge of the gravitational well that bends spacetime in a gradual, inescapable dip towards the massive black hole is just sitting there in front of him, unseeable, patiently waiting for him to come just a little bit closer, fall a little bit deeper. Bucky loves this feeling, like standing on a beach looking out over the vastness of the ocean. He finds peace in surrendering to the knowledge that when faced with the unfathomable powers of the universe, he doesn’t have to be anything. Because he is nothing.

 

His belly takes that moment to remind him that while he may be happy with nothing, his empty stomach ain’t. The box of rations is tempting but pales in comparison to what is waiting for him inside. Reluctantly, he turns away from the Sky and heads inside the cabin. He dumps his cargo on the kitchen counter and turns on a few lights. There is a good three hours of juice in them from the solar well before they’ll start to dim, but that should be plenty of time for what he’s got planned.

  Bucky stands before the dwindling supplies of his pantry: there are a few jars of sweet corn relish left, a tin of water chestnuts, a pack of dense rye crackers, and a single can of the most glorious of ingredients that ever encountered a bowl of hot broth. Pozole. He’d been saving the hearty white corn, the last of the “gourmet” foodstuffs sent to him by Luis, for who knows what. But today had been just one of those days. _Fuck it_. He grabs the tin.

 

He puts on the radio and blasts the volume. Between waves of static the beat of some new-punk reggae fills the room. Bucky is dangerously close to being in a good mood as he chops one of the onions from his summer garden and adds it to a large pan. He fills a large measuring cup with water and sets it aside. It takes a few minutes to find the can opener which is definitely not in the drawer where it’s supposed to be. _What do those squirrely bots even need this for anyways?!?_  He spins back around to the precious can of pozole, grips it in his prosthetic hand and deftly removes the lid. He’s about to turn back to the pot when he remembers the little ramita of oregano he had drying near the window. He looks over by the stove. _There’s the pestle, where the hell is the …_         

 

“Hi.”

 

Bucky’s heart leaps into his throat and his veins surge with fire as he spins towards the voice that came from behind. The cervos in his shoulder whine and crunch as he pulls back then unleashes his arm forward on instinct, throwing whatever is in his hand towards the intruder. The can of pozole explodes against the brick wall on the other side of the kitchen. Something golden and bulky dodges as white grains of puffy corn rain down over the counters and floor.  

  Bucky stares unblinking, robotic arm outstretched and frozen in place, as a man slowly rises from his defensive crouch behind the counter. The man stops halfway and looks up at Bucky through long, thick lashes and a fringe of golden hair. His eyes are blue and bright - _like Rigel_. Bucky stops breathing. The man stands up, a blush creeping from his cheeks past the neckline of his shirt. A very tight shirt. Stretched over very large muscles. Bucky swallows.

“I’m Steve.” His voice effortlessly cuts through the noise from the radio, which seems to have faded into the background of Bucky’s consciousness. The man thrusts out a hand, long elegant fingers stretched towards Bucky, “Steve Rogers.”

  The man’s voice, Steve’s voice, is deep and sonorous and Bucky can’t seem to stop staring. _Oh, fuck me._

 

Bucky lowers his arm slowly but otherwise doesn’t move. The man, Steve, pulls his hand back awkwardly and shuffles his feet, “I’m really sorry to startle you, I thought you’d be expecting me.” He runs a hand through his hair, obviously embarrassed, “Didn’t the University let you know I was coming?”

It takes Bucky a few too many seconds to realize that Steve is waiting for an answer. He manages to shake his head, “Nope.”

“Central didn’t try and contact you? I told the people at Watcher control to give you at least a week’s notice.”

Bucky can’t control his laughter at that one. Central was drowning in so much red tape it was amazing anything ever got done at all, and Bucky wasn’t actually convinced that anything ever did. “Ha! No.”

Steve looks around, leaning forward from arms propped up on the kitchen counter. His arms are corded with muscle so thick and firm it catches Bucky off guard and he starts blinking incessantly. As he rubs at his eyes trying to banish the image that was burned into his vision, Steve tries again, “Isn’t there usually a resident scientist here?”

Bucky drops his hands, looks straight at Steve Rogers and tries to convey with his entire body _Nope, and that includes you pal!_ Normally the combination of his scowl and a flex of his prosthetic arm would be enough to make other people scamper away and not bother him again, but this Steve Rogers seems to be immune. He even smiles at him.

The most awkward stand-off of Bucky’s life follows with him frowning, hands on hips, and Steve just smiling away, waiting patiently like he hasn’t a care in the world. Bucky finally gives in and drops his arms, but struggles to find something to say that isn’t _Who the fuck are you?_ Or _Get off my mountain_.

Steve finally gives in as well and reverts to the embarrassed shuffle. He gestures around at the pozole splattered on the walls and floor, “I ruined your dinner.” He bends down and picks up the can, that now looks half exploded from hitting the brick wall so hard, “Please, I’ll clean up and make you something else. I got some supplies in my pack.” He starts digging around in his backpack before Bucky can stop him.

Bucky holds out a hand, “No.” Steve looks up and freezes, alarmed. Bucky swallows. When did his mouth get so dry? “I mean, no thank you. I’m not really hungry.”

Steve narrows his eyes at him but relents. He closes his backpack up again and shoulders it, “Ok, but I owe you a dinner. I insist”

He looks so serious that Bucky finds himself agreeing, “Sure.” The thought that dinner with Steve Rogers will be his first date in over 5 years flies through his overwhelmed mind.

The awkward stand-off returns, only this time Bucky just stands there stiffly watching Steve smile at anything but him, fiddling with the strap of his backpack. Finally, Steve gestures to the way he had come in, “I’ll just …”.

Bucky gives a huff and starts walking in the opposite direction towards the sliding doors that lead to the patio overlooking the valley. _I should start locking the door._ “Come on, I’ll give you a ride _._ ” He doesn’t bother to check if Steve follows, but hears his footsteps after a few moments, softer than he would have guessed for such a big guy. As Buck makes his way around to the truck he notices the footsteps have stopped. With a beleaguered sigh,  he turns around to get Steve and finds the newcomer stock still on the patio staring out to the night sky and the glowing clouds of the Milky Way. Bucky takes a step closer and gets comfortable, indulging the other man for a few minutes. Eventually, he huffs or growls or something equally passive aggressive that he’ll fully admit to and heads back towards the truck. This time Steve follows.

 

He decides to take him to Howlie so that the bot can take care of the visitor and Bucky can get back to his routine. He hates being out at night - the headlights of the truck create a tunnel through the darkness pressing in on all sides as they move up the mountain. Steve talks the entire time, first about his research, something NEO related of course, and then about his plans for an observation run, which Bucky half pays attention to. He really doesn’t want to get distracted and run into a deer or something.

A sudden quiet makes Bucky finally glance over. Steve is staring at the Brooklyn Bridge snow globe and Buck isn’t sure but he looks kinda mad? Sad?

Steve finally puts down the globe and asks, _“_ I don’t remember much about it, do you?”

The question isn’t an easy one to answer, even with Steve watching him through his periphery. As he parks the truck next to the large telescope building he had answered more truthfully than he thought he could, “I wish I remembered less.”

 

Inside, Steve is less apprehensive with Howlie than any other visitor that Bucky has ever witnessed, but he still takes a few minutes to realize that the creepy clown face the bot is projecting is in fact a joke and that Howlie’s sense of humour is just one of his many quirks. Cutting intelligence is another and he lets them go on and on about Steve’s research until Bucky fades out and slips away without a word. He barely remembers getting back to the Red Cabin and into his bed before the alarm wakes him the next morning.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terrible-timing Steve.

 

Bucky’s eyes snap open at the sound of the alarm. 07:00. He stares confused at the sunlit pine ceiling above his bed before he realizes that he should shut it off. Had it really been that long since he’d been woken by his alarm instead of waiting for it? The fog in his brain competes with the static over the radio as he switches off the alarm and listens for the news. The red tide around the Acapulco Crater basin is early this year due to the accelerated warming, all residents are advised to move inland. A new residential dome has opened on the Moon, put your name in now to get one of the last units! Forest fires on the Pacific side of the Central Sector have broken out but are quickly being contained by UN emergency services. Preparations for Clear Sky Festival celebrations continuing as planned. Bucky looks out the window pressing his face to the cool glass in order to get a view of the South East. He imagines a haze in the distance, the smoke from a million fires surrounding Central in an impenetrable wall of flame and him left alone on his mountain. No one to report to, no one to watch for. Something in his brain is trying to poke at him through the fog and snaps him out of his daydream. He ignores his brain and starts his stretches. Enjoy the weather, folks! Clear skies forecast from coast to coast for the next few days. At least the seeing conditions will be good, not that anyone at Central cares, but at least Howlie will be happy.

 

07:50. Bucky throws on his plaid shirt as he scans the kitchen for something for breakfast. The place is a bit of a mess -  _ what have those bots been up to in here? _ He puts the coffee pot on the stove, ignoring the soup pot half full of water and nothing else. One of the onions from his garden is left out on the counter next to an old box of Unity rations. He throws them both in the pantry and vaguely notes that his store of canned goods is lower than he thought. Better get that order out to Luis this week. He snags a few rations for his day in lieu of trying to put anything more complicated together. A few glugs of water are pumped into his thermos to give it a hasty rinse as he refills it with the fresh brew. The smell alone does a good job of clearing some of the haze from his mind but he still lets the internal autopilot honed over the years guide him to the truck and take him up the mountain. It wouldn’t be the first time that he showed up late for a day in his own life. 

He doesn’t realize he’d decided to check on the large telescope first until the truck comes to a stop at the line of trees beside the unfinished housing building. The air is fresh and he clears his lungs on a drawn out inhale. Bucky leans against the hood of the truck and pours himself a cup, cradling it against his chest as he takes small sips of the burning liquid. The caffeine does more than he’d like to admit in bringing his thoughts back to life. More than once he’s almost had a panic attack at the thought that Luis’ coffee supply will one day run dry. It was precarious enough as it was, relying on his back channel chain of local suppliers that crisscrossed the continent. He drains the cup and screws it back on the thermos. That’s a problem for tomorrow. 

 

Inside, Howlie sits alone in front of the bank of monitors, giving off the impression of napping if Bucky didn’t know better. Their USB port is connected to the main server and data is furiously pouring across the screen. All around the room are little piles of paper and notebooks, yellowed from the passage of time. Bucky crinkles his nose at the musty smell of old paper and looks around for the other bots but no one is there. He pours himself another cup of coffee and ambles up behind the bot, “Busy night?”

Without turning around Howlie answers, “Yes. Sorry about the mess Buck-ee, but Dum-Dum took my instructions of sorting the old notes on the Core by keyword very literally. I have only managed to scan about half.”

Bucky takes another sip, a feeling of dread poking from the inside of his skull. No, not dread, just a feeling that something is off niggles at him, “Shouldn’t Falsworth be helping you here?”  _ Damn squirrelly bots, never where they are supposed to be. _

“I am perfectly capable of holding down the fort as you say.” Howlie’s head swivels to show a **:|** on his face. Nice. “I sent Falsworth and Dum-Dum to set the visitor up at the 84 centimetre telescope.”

Bucky’s cup halts halfway to his lips, “Visitor?” But even as Howlie answers  _ Dr. Rogers _ last night comes crashing back to him and it’s all he can do to not drop his cup as he tries to find a chair to collapse on. His butt hits the floor instead with a bit of a jolt but he doesn’t notice.

 

Steve Rogers. 

Big, blond, terrible timing Steve Rogers. And Bucky had thrown a can of pozole at him. He runs his hand roughly over his face at the memory, yanking the ends of his beard hard in frustration. He had completely forgotten about the visitor. Correction: he’d completely blocked out the fact that there was a new resident astronomer on the mountain.  _ His _ mountain.

He gets up from the floor with no small amount of effort, knees popping and spine crackling loud enough to make Howlie start toward him. Bucky just raises his palm to stop the bot and shakes his head. He makes sure he’s got a couple ration packs on him and turns back the way he came, putting on a bit of a show with a creaky wobble despite having stubbornly refused Howlie’s help just a moment before, “I guess I had better check on Dr. Rogers then, bring him to the residences.” He exaggerates being put out by having to take care of the guest but Howlie ignores him, engrossed once again in their work. Meh. He jumps back in his truck, ignoring the sudden onset of nervousness.  _ Ridiculous, Barnes. He’s just another Central University NEO researcher, one of many, one of Them.  _ His brow furrows at the thought that he might be being watched, shoulders instinctively tensing, gaze shifting around as he pulls out onto the road and heads down to the small telescope. Steve Rogers: Big, blond Hydranamics spy. He huffs, remembering the pozole exploding and Steve’s sheepish grin.  _ Yeah right, what a punk. _

 

He finds Rogers in the work room next to the cupola, completely passed out. Falsworth is busy running a diagnostic on the old system. Bucky goes over to the bot who shows him the patches he’s had to make for Rogers to adapt the observing software to his needs. The checkboxes next to the filter list dictates what he’ll be doing that day. He purses his lips and huffs through his nose. Hunting down the required filters is going to take some time.  _ What’s he gonna do, point the scope at the Sun all day? Whatever. _ Bucky doesn’t care, he doesn’t! He tells Falsworth to continue with the low-res scan the bot had been setting up yesterday. If Rogers was going to show up unexpectedly then he’d just have to fit into the established schedule. He turns towards the slumbering visitor, hands on hips, frowning down at him. Sleeping on the desk will give the big dummy a crick in his neck and Bucky ain’t about to dole out free massages - and ain’t that a thought. Grimacing to himself he decides he better wake the guy up.

There is a small glob of drool pooling on the desk and damn it all to hell if it doesn’t make the golden bastard that much more,  _ god _ he can’t even think it without cringing internally,  _ adorable _ . Bucky’s hand is halfway to Steve’s shoulder when he realizes how close he’s standing to him. He gives the big lump a shake absolutely not committing to memory the feeling of sleep-warm firm muscle beneath his fingers and takes a step back. Long lashes flutter as Steve clearly struggles against unconsciousness. His back rises as he takes a deep breath, straining against the fabric of his rumpled t-shirt. Bucky reflexively tightens his fist to keep from reaching out again and seeing for himself just how firm those smooth muscles really are. Without lifting his head, Steve lolls sideways over one folded arm, looks up at Bucky with the full force of his clear blue eyes and full-on eye-crinkle  _ smiles _ at him.

Bucky can feel the corners of his mouth pull down just as his breath catches and his stomach does the most annoying fluttery thing - it just makes Rogers’ smile crack wide with his damn perfect teeth.  _ Fuck _ . Bucky hears the crinkle of the ration pack as his grip tightens. He tosses it at Rogers’ face hoping that it wipes away that damn sunshine smile. He turns away before he can find out and tries not to cringe at his own asshole behaviour when he hears the pack hit its mark and Rogers gives out a little huff followed by a dry, “Good morning to you too.”

Bucky ignores the chuckle from behind him and heads towards the exit, “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be bunking.”

 

The quiet of the ride down to the residences is broken only by Steve’s munching of his breakfast of Tex Mex flavoured rations interspersed by gulps from his water bottle. Bucky diligently keeps his eyes on the road and only gives a quiet grunt that he’d heard Rogers’ thanks when the other man had finished.

It’s almost 10:00 when they pull into the small lot next to the residences and park between a rusted pre-Unity VW beetle and Bucky’s snowmobile hunkered down under a dusty tarp. Bucky adds a maintenance check on the snowmobile to his mental list of chores he had better get done before making the Winter order with Luis. 

Steve walks over to Bucky’s side, and gestures over to the covered snowmobile. He rubs the back of his neck and looks at Bucky with those puppy-dog eyes, “You don’t happen to have another tarp, do you? I left my bike down by your cabin - which I’ll move over here later, don’t worry! - but I, uh, forgot about Winter. It probably gets pretty snowy up here, doesn’t it.”

Bucky raises an astonished brow at that.  _ Does it snow _ ?  _ Guy is in for ten feet of fluffy white surprise. _ He can’t help but assess the newcomer, eyeing him up and down - tall, thick arms and shoulders, thighs for days - of course, he has a motorbike. He bets it's a classic too, all that roaring steel harnessed under that powerful body. Bucky is helpless against the mental image. He sucks his bottom lip between his teeth when he notices Steve shifting uncomfortably under his scrutiny, his arms crossing self-consciously over a thin t-shirt that is way too small... Bucky’s embarrassed blush is covered by his rising annoyance at a sudden realization, “Forgot about Winter.” He points to the backpack slung over Steve’s shoulder, “What else did you forget to bring?”

Steve’s brow shoots up as he visibly works through what Bucky is getting at. He looks down at his shirt and lets out a little  _ oh! _ When he looks back up he is laughing. Bucky endures the deep booming sound that reaches across the short distance between them and reverberates through his own chest, ignores the heat from the clap on his shoulder as Steve walks past him towards the buildings, “Oh don’t worry about that! I’ll be OK with my fleece when the weather starts to turn. I run pretty hot these days.” He gives a great yawn and a stretch that pulls his shirt up to reveal a sliver of his lower back and hips, a light trail of golden brown hair over his stomach leading down behind the waistband of his jeans. Completely oblivious to the effect of his words and movements he ambles over to Dum-Dum who is emerging from the closest and best-kept residence building, holding out his fist for a bump of greeting from the bot.

Bucky is frozen in place unable to think or move. His brain must be short circuiting because he doesn’t even notice the buzz of the Land Watcher coming over the treeline until it’s practically on top of them. He sees Steve whip his head towards the noise, all traces of his recent joviality gone in an instant. An intense focus sharpens his features but before Bucky can contemplate the change the guy ducks out of view inside the building. 

Now that the man is out of sight Bucky’s brain seems to come back online. He takes out his annoyance with himself and his reactions to, let’s be honest, the first man he’s seen besides Luis in over a year, on the passing bird. He thrusts his arms into the air and gives the drone the finger with both hands. He’s pretty proud of himself for not letting out the scream that bounces around the inside of his skull, straightens out his shirt and follows Steve into his new home for the foreseeable future. 

  
  


Bucky manages to avoid Steve for the rest of the day. After a perfunctory rundown of the residence’s amenities he left the big golden dope to stare starry-eyed at the swooping curves that framed each floor to ceiling window that ringed the building, those elegant fingers smoothing lines along the molded fibreglass and wood of the original furniture that still retained its deep sheen thanks to Dum-Dum’s diligent care. 

Just as Bucky had tried to escape, Steve had stopped him, voice full of awe, “This place is amazing.” Bucky had held a breath and turned around, steeling himself against the onslaught of soft radiance pouring from the man in front of him. Steve went on, oblivious to Bucky’s struggle, a character flaw that Bucky would hold against him as long as he could. “Pre-Unity for sure. I mean pre- _ us _ !” He looks back at Bucky with open earnest eyes, “How did you keep it intact?”

That had gotten an amused huff out of Bucky.  _ Not without a hell of a lot of effort, Pal. _ “Dum Dum is a construction bot. The plans for these buildings were still here and his original programming was … cancelled. So, he takes it upon himself to take care of the buildings we do use.” Bucky had turned again and walked toward the door a little faster this time, “Just don’t look too closely at the rest of the buildings here, they were scavenged for furniture and parts.” He had stopped at the door remembering one last piece of important information and turned reluctantly towards Steve, who was of course, back to sliding his hands lovingly over every smooth surface he could reach, “Uh...there’s a wood stove for heat. You might run hot, but we run it during the cold months regardless of whether someone is here or not - gotta avoid temperature extremes on the seals.” He had turned away again, unwilling to watch Steve listening to him with that intense earnest focus, and yelled out, “One of the bots will be stocking the woodpile and I’ll chop it this week.”

With that, he had been finally done with the guest but Steve had had to throw out, “Don’t worry about it, Buck! I can handle it.”

Steve swinging an axe, over and over, broad shoulders working under a sheen of sweat. Isolating himself from other humans for so long was obviously having disastrous effects on Bucky’s mind. “Of course you can.”

He drove Dum-Dum up to the large telescope to continue helping Howlie, then went to check on the other bots. Gabe and Morita were still monitoring their assigned observing run data down at the 1.5m telescope. Bucky had been about to go searching for the filters when Gabe none too subtly reminded him about his broken rotor assembly. Screw Rogers and his damn weird filters, he was already distracting Bucky from his todo list. He gave Gabe’s joints a full oil protocol as an apology. Gabe showed his appreciation by helping Bucky search the offices stuffed with plastic containers for the wayward filters. Unfortunately, they came up empty, though Bucky did find Morita’s night vision lens attachments that the bot had misplaced last year during the Great Squirrel Hunt. They were still finding stashes of acorns in the nooks and crannies of the compound.

Late afternoon finds Bucky emerging triumphantly from a storage room at the base of the Tower. His coffee and ration bar long gone, Bucky is getting hungry but at least he’d found the damn filters. He was torn between bringing them down to the small telescope himself or going to check on Howlie. It would be dark soon and that’s when the astronomers came out. 

Bucky rolls his eyes inwardly, treating Steve like the boogeyman, but still gives Falsworth the filters to bring down anyways. He’d been neglecting Howlie all day, he tells himself, the bot was missing him surely.

“Is it almost night already? I swear Buck-ee that you were sitting right there whining about the Visitor not five minutes ago.”

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest and lifts his chin with dignity, “I do not whine, you ungrateful bot. See if I ask Luis for those new self-cleaning all-weather treads now.”

Howlie’s face materializes with a  **:P** blinking in the corner, “I do not need you to request things from Luis in my stead, he likes me better than you, remember? Or are you repressing that fact along with all the other realities.”

Bucky glares, “Touché, asshole. I remember Rogers just fine.”  _ Unfortunately for my sanity,  _ he adds sullenly.

Howlie gives the telltale series of beeps that indicates laughter with a distinct tone of crowing victory, “I was not referring specifically to Dr. Rogers, Buck-ee, but how interesting of you to bring him up. Personally, I like him.”

Bucky just refrains from stomping his foot, “Well good for you, I’m sure you two will be very happy. I for one, do not care.”  He turns towards the stacks of papers still covering every surface. “At. All.” He starts flipping through the old notes, he can barely make out the words the scrawl is like chicken scratch. He does manage to make out a name at the top: Dr. Selvig. “Do you need anything? I can get out the old flatbed and help you scan these.”

Howlie is back to focusing on the data, “Thank you, Buck-ee, but I am almost done. I could however, use another partition on the offline server. Security protocol  _ Ice Box _ . 40 terabytes should suffice.”

Bucky starts to move towards the stairs leading down to the small underground server room, “Sure thing, pal.”

“Thank you. Then I suggest to go get something to eat. I can hear your stomach rumbling over the sound of the cooling fans.”

Bucky sighs, loud with exasperation, but smiles to himself.  _ Damn overbearing bots.  _ “What would I do without you.” 

“Die alone,” comes the answer.  _ Geez.  _ “With the exception of the puma that would be eating you.” 

“It was one time!” Bucky stomps down the stairs and gets lost in the din of the servers before the bot can give him any more lip.

 

Avoiding Steve is almost easy. Their schedules preclude getting in each other’s way while working. Steve keeps to the typical routine of the observational NEO researcher up all night and asleep all day, while Bucky tries to keep to his regular hours as much as he can, though he never successfully forgets about the visitor again, dammit all to hell and back.

Steve’s bike appears in the lot next to the residence and, as advertised, the pile of logs next to the house becomes a pile of split firewood neatly stacked under the eaves near the entrance. Howlie gives a short report on Dr. Rogers’ activities every day, likely out of respect for Bucky’s  _ justified! p _ aranoia than any real need to keep an eye on the guys every move. Nothing too weird Bucky supposes: Rogers gets up before the sun sets and runs around the mountain a few times before getting ready for his work. Makes a circuit of the telescopes, on foot apparently, until every bot has been greeted. He then lopes back down to the smallest telescope, alone, though the bots have taken it upon themselves to drop in during the night to check on him. Apparently, the guy smiles a lot and they like him for it, go figure. At the end of his observing night, he spends the first few hours of early morning crunching data before making another round of the telescopes bidding all a good night before disappearing back into the residence to do whatever Steve Rogers does in his spare time.

It would be perfect except that Steve started leaving little things around for him to find. At first, Bucky thought the guy was just messy, leaving little candies in piles on desks - that damn squirrel was going to come back and haunt them again if he kept it up. Bucky collected them and left them on the work table next to the monitoring station at the small telescope in a sealed bag, hoping the punk would get the message that leaving food out was a bad idea. By the second day, the candies came with a note. Well, not a note exactly, but a little drawing of a cartoon woodsman, some burly dude with a plaid shirt, long hair and patchy beard that he  _ guesses  _ is supposed to be him. Cartoon Bucky finds the candy and excitedly munches on it. The final frame has a close-up on the cartoon Bucky’s smiling face. A little monkey flailing around in the corner with the initials S.R. scribbled beneath is what passes as Steve’s signature. 

Bucky takes the candy and pockets it. He looks around for a pen and scribbles a  _ Thanks - B.B.  _ next to the monkey and leaves it at that. After a dinner of canned edamame, the last canned corn, and a few crackers from his dwindling supply, Bucky caves, reaches into his pocket and grabs one of the candies. The night is clear so he goes out onto the deck, sits down propping his feet up on the railing and pops the sweet in his mouth. Instantly, he is transported back to his first days in old Mexico City before starting his studies. The whole damn place was an assault on his senses. Even during the years of hard rain the sheer amount of fresh fruit and vegetables available had been overwhelming. He’d tried everything he could get his hands on that was new, but his favourite had been a fruit stand in the market where’d they’d made the best aguas and jugos he’d ever had in his life. One had been a particular favourite: guanabana. And this little wrapped candy that Steve had left him tasted just like it. Bucky’s eyes popped open at the tell-tale whistle followed by the approaching roar of an asteroid and the memory vanished as quickly as that market had all those years ago. Bucky sat up and scanned the sky, knowing that it was clear but unable to shake the feeling of fear and dread that always followed that sound. He sat back again, cursing his imagination and cursing Steve for bringing it on. He crunched what was left of the candy and concentrated on the glow from the disk of the galaxy, allowing it to pull him away.

 

Bucky had known he couldn’t really blame Steve for his memories, so the next morning he made sure to leave a box of ration packs and some of the carrots and apples he had in cold storage on the guy’s work desk. The next day, he found a portrait of Falsworth working on data analysis in the control room at the large telescope. The detail was amazing, Bucky could hardly believe it was done with pencil and not some sort of photograph. The portraits grew in number over the next couple of days: Morita and Gabe changing the motor assembly on the telescope in the Tower, Dernier and Dum-Dum happily cleaning engine parts next to Steve’s motorcycle (Bucky tried not to be annoyed that Steve was taking the bots time for non-science related work, but damn his ride was just so  _ fine _ ), and finally one of Howlie with an ASCII smile printed on their face. The man had talent, Bucky had to admit, and the bots seemed happy with him around. Howlie hadn’t even tried to scare him once, which was just plain weird. Bucky scrounged around in one of the old offices in the Tower pulling out a box of old framed degrees that had once adorned the walls but had been taken down to avoid damage during the days of hard rain. He took out the yellowed parchment, replacing them with the new portraits, wiping the glass with a soft cloth until he could see his reflection. He and Dum-Dum hung them up in the large open control room of the big telescope. Finally, he took a page from the back of an old notebook and drew his own comic: a stick man with highlighter yellow hair running up the mountain then crying with joy when he finds the art display. The next day he finds it taped to the wall next to the portraits, the cartoon Bucky standing proudly next to the overjoyed stickman Steve.

By the end of a week, Bucky starts to feel guilty for avoiding the visitor and decides to check on him before he sends word to Luis for the next supply run. Besides, avoidance wasn’t really working and Bucky’s dreams were now being invaded by a deep voice murmuring in his ear and sunshine filtered through soft hair making it look like spun gold. Eyes as blue as the hottest stars.  _ What’re you, some kind of poet? Knock it off Barnes! _ The point was, if avoidance wasn’t working for Bucky’s human-starved body and mind, then maybe over-saturation would make him immune to Steve’s charm offence, physical and otherwise. Bucky was going to, as it were,  _ hang out _ .

He arrives at the residence and drops a box of tools next to the covered snowmobile, fully intending to give it the once over after checking in with Steve. He is, after all, going to contact Luis that day so it’s perfectly logical to see if Steve wants to order anything. As Bucky approaches the door to the residence he finds himself getting that nervous butterfly feeling in his stomach. It quickly turns into annoyance, what did he have to be nervous about!? At that moment he looks down at his last pair of jeans, both knees ripped and thigh stained with grease from the telescope machinery.  _ Whatever, Barnes, can’t exactly go in there without pants on.  _ Ugh, damn his dirty mind for taking him there.

It was first thing in the morning, so Steve should still be awake. He knocks on the door and waits, straightening out his shirt and moving his weight from one foot to the other. No answer, so he knocks again. He pulls his sleeve lower over his prosthetic. After a minute and no response, Bucky tries the handle. It’s unlocked so he cracks it open and yells inside, “Steve?” No answer, so he goes in and closes the door behind him. He calls out the visitor’s name as he moves into the living area but there is still no answer. From there he can see the door to the bedroom wide open - nothing there except a neatly made bed. Nothing in the bathroom either. He’s about to give up and start on the snowmobile when a box on the dining table catches his eye.  _ No harm in just looking. _ As he gets closer Bucky recognizes it as a record player. It’s pretty banged up on the outside but the turntable and needle arm look well taken care of. Steve must be having problems with it since next to it a mess of parts belonging to what must be the solar power adaptor unit is spread out on the table’s surface. Bucky can’t resist having a quick look at the machinery displayed before him. He notices the problem right away, the damaged capacitor next to the power cells. Bucky carefully takes out the damaged part - he doesn’t think he has one on the mountain but he’ll put word out to Luis, shouldn’t be a problem for the trader.

Just then a bang on the window scares the shit out of Bucky, making him jump. He scrambles not to drop the delicate machinery and scowls at the big blond waving enthusiastically from the other side of the glass. Steve must have been out doing exercise or something, because his shirt is just about soaked through, clinging to his body. Bucky gulps and looks away putting down the solar adaptor and willing himself not to run away. Steve comes bounding in the front door a few seconds later, not even breathing hard despite the obvious hard work. Bucky looks up and does his best approximation of a smile, “Sorry to come barging in, it’s just there was no answer at the door.”

Steve rests his hands on his hip and nods,”Yeah, I was just out doing some chin-ups.” He looks sheepish again as he scratches the back of his head and gestures towards the trees, “I may have broken a few branches.”

That gets a laugh out of Bucky, “Really. Well, we can always use more firewood, I guess.” He gestures to the record player, “Couldn’t help myself, machines just talk to me.” He holds up the burnt out capacitor, “Found your problem. Thought I’d ask my supplier if he can get his hands on an extra.”

Steve’s jaw drops open and his eyes bulge out. “Really? That would be so great, thank you! I’ve been carrying Peggy around for ages, but she hasn’t been able to sing for me in months.” He takes a quick step towards Bucky but aborts the movement when Bucky jerks backwards. 

Embarrassed at being spooked, Bucky aims for deflection, “You named your record player Peggy?”

Steve beams, unapologetic, “Yep.” He moves towards the table again, slowly this time, and grabs a record from a stack on a chair. He holds it up for Bucky to see: The Mountain Goats, “She loves the classics.”

Bucky shakes his head, “Never heard of them.” Steve shrugs and puts down the record, “But I’d love to sometime,” he quickly amends. “Maybe when you make me that dinner you promised.” 

Steve’s smile is blinding in its sincerity and Bucky instantly flushes, “It’s a date.”

Bucky’s mouth is suddenly dry, “Anyways, I came here to ask if you wanted anything. That is, to trade. With my supplier.” Steve’s confusion mounts with every word that awkwardly makes its way out of Bucky’s mouth if the height of his brow in any indication. He takes a deep breath and tries again, “I am putting in an order to my supplier today, the last one before winter, after which getting up and down this mountain is near impossible. Would you like to trade for anything?” Steve looks around the room - he doesn’t seem to have much, “Besides basic food, don’t worry about that, I’ve got that covered.”

Those bright blue eyes pin Bucky in place as Steve answers, “Oh I don’t know about that. I have a pretty huge appetite.”

_ I bet you do. _ “Well, uh, if you think of anything let me know. I’ll be out in the lot working on the snowmobile for the next hour or so.” And with that Bucky gives a curt smile and a nod then heads towards the door, sidestepping Steve. He’d done pretty well, he thinks, and he’s about to escape when Steve turns and follows him.

“Oh, I’ll keep you company then. I don’t actually go to sleep until about noon or so.” 

Bucky grimaces at the ground. “Great.” He can do this. He can hang out.

  
  


By 09:30 Bucky is done going over the snowmobile with nothing glaringly obvious to add to his list of parts to order. Steve had even helped him clean and oil some of the parts, chatting all the while about his record collection and how Peggy had gotten him in trouble with more than one landlord. He had admitted that he’d lost the amplifier in a motorcycle accident - he was fine! - he’d been sure to add at Bucky’s tense look, but he’d lost most of the equipment that he’d had. He was still recovering it bit by bit. Bucky told him about Dum-Dum and the speaker assembly he intended to order. He was sure he could rig some connection from Peggy to the bot - they might have music besides the scratchy radio in a few weeks. Steve had beamed again at that, and Bucky surprised himself by not falling to pieces and actually smiling back. 

It was good. Sure Steve had done most of the talking but eventually, Bucky had been able to listen and work at the same time. As they cover the snowmobile back up Steve suggests he stop in the next morning for a coffee, he has some instant he’d brought from Central stores, but it’s better than nothing. Bucky agrees, but only if he brings his own brew from Luis’ beans to share. Steve covers his heart with his big hand and pretends to faint with disbelief. Bucky gets in the truck and waves as he pulls out of the lot and turns up the mountain. When the Land Watcher flies by a few minutes later Bucky gives it his usual greeting, but this time with a toothy grin.

 

10:34 and Bucky is still waiting to connect to the Free Net. He should be used to the speed, or lack thereof, but he feels impatient and wants to talk to someone. Dum-Dum is busy putting away the papers that had littered the room and Howlie is busy trying to prise information out of Central. Bucky spins in his chair, dragging out the screech from one of the rusty wheels every turn. 

“You can spin forever, Buck-ee, and I will never get more annoyed at you than my baseline.”

Bucky points in triumph, “Ha! So you admit I can get to you.”

Howlie didn’t bother to look at him, “I think it is your baseline that is easy to cross. How are things going with St _ eeeeee _ ve?”

Bucky turns back around and faces his monitor, “Oh, sorry Howlie, can’t chat now, connection is through.” He ignores the bots tinny chuckle.

He surfs the forums, but there are no new messages from Luis so he gets down to writing his own message. It’s to the point, as usual, and is mostly taken up by the long list of items he wants and the shorter list of things he has to trade. He is about to sign off that he’ll have the customary leftover buffet ready for when he arrives when he remembers about Steve. Steve Rogers, NEO researcher from Central University, big, blond, friendly, unexpected and unannounced, Steve. He deliberates asking Luis if he’s ever heard of him, finally settling on adding his name at the end of the note. Luis is discrete but thorough. He’s just checking out Steve’s story, no big deal. Bucky’s not about to call anyone official about it, geez. It’ll be a colder day in this hell before Bucky talks to some Hydranamics goon in Central on purpose.

 

Another week goes by in much the same way as the first with the exception that Bucky’s first stop of the day is to have coffee with Steve, who is appropriately awed at Bucky’s coffee supply. The guy is pretty chatty, asking seemingly endless questions about the mountain, it’s facilities, the bots and even Bucky himself. To say Bucky isn’t used to it would be a bit of an understatement, but Steve seems to get the message when Bucky changes the subject whenever they start talking about any time before Buck become Keeper of the Watch on the Mountain. Steve shares his amusement of the dramatic and oversimplified bureaucratic titles that the New World Order had adopted, so they had something else in common after all. Coffee never goes beyond 09:30 and the subject of their pending dinner isn’t brought up again.  _ Thank the Stars for small mercies _ , Bucky tells himself even as he inventories the last of the garden vegetables left in cold storage just in case. 

For his part, Bucky doesn’t ask much from Steve. He tells himself he doesn’t care, that the guy is only here for a few months before going back to Central and whatever NEO researchers did when they weren’t on Luna. At least his physical reactions to Steve were getting milder, even as his dreams got a little … wilder. Even Howlie had remarked that Bucky seemed, if not happy, at least less gruff. Bucky tries to glare to compensate but it’s half-hearted at best.  

The Clear Sky Festival comes and goes, marked only by Hydranamics speeches over the news feed radio. There had been a record attendance. Though, if Bucky thinks too hard about it he can’t square the number of people partying in Central the with the number that would have been left on Earth considering mass migration to Luna over the past decade, so he simply doesn’t.

By mid-week, he’s heard back from Luis. Bucky can expect him to come up in a couple of weeks, until then he suggests turning his worn denims into cutoffs - Bucky considers it but they’d be pretty short, maybe for next summer when it’s just him and the bots again. The thought would normally cheer him up but now he just isn’t so sure. Speaking of the only other human in a 100km radius, Luis couldn’t really find any information on any Steve Rogers, though he admits that his sources haven’t been updated in a few years, whatever that means. Maybe the guy is new at the University. Nothing obvious on the back channels, not really surprising considering he was an NEO researcher and this an employee of Hydranamics, though Luis seemed to find it weird that he was left on the surface.  _ Maybe he’s just not that good at his job  _ though even thinking it felt wrong. If Steve is anything it’s capable.

Bucky is happy to let Luis dig to his heart's content. He’ll be here in person soon enough and Steve will finally get a run for his money when it comes to being chatty. Bucky puts the mystery aside and focuses on the now. He checks a few more forums and picks up a new high-calorie root vegetable recipe that will come in handy when the inevitable happens and he’ll have to stretch his stores between deliveries. He answers a few questions on the amateur astronomy forum. The meetup in the North Eastern Sector seems to be ongoing with the amount of chatter from people who are probably sitting next to each other, eyes glued to laptops propped up on knees. The d4nc1ngm0nk3y is back, seems like the guy found what he was looking for and is coordinating with the other group. Bucky gives some advice on a do-it-yourself adaptive optics filter combo they could use, even providing a snippet of Falsworth’s pseudocode from his work down at the small telescope. When he starts getting messages urging him to join them he decides that now is the time to log off. The thought of socializing with a group of people just makes his stomach drop.

 

The days start to get shorter, the light across his ceiling when his morning alarm goes off barely a grey glow. Bucky expects the low rumble of Luis’s camper van to come up the mountain any day now. He hopes to any gods that will listen that the trader was able to get more coffee - Bucky’s just about out now that he’s been sharing. Steve is as energetic as ever, seemingly impervious to the lengthening periods of darkness that sends Bucky to his bed earlier and getting up later. 

   It’s 07:45 already and Bucky is just finishing his shoulder rotations. He swears he’s getting old.  _ So damn stiff this morning, the temperature must have dropped last night.  _ He puts on a lined flannel over his t-shirt and grabs the thermos with a watered down brew in the hopes that the supply will last a few days more.

   There is a chill in the cool clear morning air and he can see his breath puff out in front of him. He’s so preoccupied with thoughts of starting the truck without having attached the heater block to the solar well last night that he completely misses the layer of frost on the stone patio. One step heavy on his heel and the ground is suddenly frictionless. As his body jerks violently sideways to compensate the coffee flask goes flying out of his hand, bounces off the side of the cabin and starts rolling towards the edge of the veranda, open to the valley below.  _ FUUUUUUCKKK!!!!  _ Bucky launches himself on the flagstones towards the flask, the palm of his prosthetic hand hitting the frosted surface at a bad angle sending a painful jolt into his shoulder before losing purchase and sliding under his body. He lands hard on his wrist, something giving way with an ominous crunch. For a moment he slides along the stones and the frost is a blessing as his flesh hand manages to get purchase on the handle.  _ “ _ Oof!” His body slams against the railing and finally comes to a halt. Bucky lays there face down on the stones letting the cold seep into his adrenaline fused body. Eventually, he tries to sit back up but finds he can’t manoeuvre his prosthetic for leverage. He puts the coffee down and manages to use his other arm to push himself up, but his left shoulder screams as he twists around to lean back against the rail and catch his breath. He refuses to scream in frustration but it’s a close thing, settling instead for a colourful string of curses.

 

It’s almost 10:00 and Bucky is still sitting at his dining table just inside the patio doors to the cabin, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling in defeat. In front of him the parts of his toolkit are scattered over the table’s surface, the thermos of coffee banged up but otherwise untouched pushed to the side. When he hears the door slide open and that deep voice from his dreams calls out his name he just screws his eyes shut and wills the only other man on the mountain,  _ his mountain!  _ to go away.

   He doesn’t, of course, the golden bastard! But he must hesitate as there are a solid 30 seconds before Bucky hears the cabinets in the kitchen opening and closing. He snaps his head around to glare, sending a lightning strike of pain from his shoulder into his neck,  _ goddamnit! _ “What are you doing Rogers.” 

    Steve keeps opening doors until he finds what he’s looking for. He holds up two mugs and lopes back to the table, taking a seat on the end next to Bucky’s broken arm. “Getting my morning coffee. My  _ late _ morning coffee.”

   Bucky huffs, he’s not in the mood for Steve’s poking at the bear humour “Didn’t your mama ever teach you not to go through another person’s things?”

   Steve says nothing to that, just starts pouring the coffee, sliding the still steaming cup over to Bucky’s good side first, then one for himself, “What happened?” 

   He looks over the rim of his cup at Bucky with those bright blue eyes, so earnest in their concern and something about it just rubs Bucky the wrong way. He tries to take a sip of the weak brew but just slams down the cup instead, “Why are you here, Steve?”

   Steve sets down his own mug and levels his laser-like focus at Bucky’s prosthetic arm laid out on the table, facing upwards and open as though mid-surgery, “That’s some pretty old tech there.” Bucky growls involuntarily and tries to put his hand in a fist instinctively but  _ his fucking arm is broken. _ Steve leans in closer, “You know it’s been a really long time but I have some experience with these things. My Ma …” and now Steve pauses, something hard and fleeting passing over his downturned gaze, “...she was a nurse and taught me a few things about medical robotics. Pretty common when the first wave of Alphas hit.” He starts to reach out and Bucky jerks away.

   “This isn’t from getting hit by some goddamn rock falling out of the sky.” Bucky screws his eyes shut again and sucks in a breath. He’s starting to drift back, the sounds of shells going off and the blasting heat of fire against his skin.  _ No no no no!  _ He stands up abruptly, knocking the table and jostling the tools to the floor. 

   Steve stands with him and reaches out a steadying hand, “Buck, sit down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

   Bucky stares at him in disbelief, “Why do you care!? You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Bucky takes a step back from Steve’s shock but can’t stop the sudden onslaught of all his doubts and suspicions, “A fucking NEO researcher, UN employee, and Hydranamics lackey. What are you still doing here anyways, Steve? Shouldn’t you be on Luna with  _ them _ ?” He looks to the window and doesn’t see the sun-drenched valley, only sees blackened scorched earth, only hears screams. He gestures outside, “The people who did this.” He lifts his broken arm, “The ones who gave me this!” He looks at his hand but the worn scarred metal is scorched, dripping red, “This was made for war.” He looks back up at Steve who looks taken aback at his accusatory glare, “Don’t tell me you didn’t know about Schmidt’s war, Steve, or do they not like to talk about it around the office. Too much of a bloody reminder of how they got everything they wanted, how they  _ took _ it. They did, after all, erase the history books, abandoned the people they used to win their power.” And that startles something out of Steve, a crease in his brow, a look of what? Anger? Disappointment?  _ Knowing.  _ Bucky laughs, mirthless and rough, “Oh, didn’t you know? I was a soldier at the end of the world.”

   At that Steve turns away as if struck and moves towards the door.  _ Good riddance -  _ thinks Bucky even as panic at the other man walking away, probably leaving the mountain altogether, leaving him behind, starts to bubble up. He forcefully pushes it down into his gut and sits heavily again at the table. He picks up a small screwdriver from the floor and starts to poke again at his arm, ignoring the whistling sound of explosives and debris falling through the air around him until it fades into the background static. He is better off alone. 

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve tells his story.

 

“When I was young I was sick just about all the time.”

Bucky startles and looks towards the door where Steve still stands, a silhouette against the blue sky stretched over the valley. 

Steve takes a breath and lets it out fully before looking up - Bucky is frozen in place as he continues, “I used to go with my Ma to work when my lungs were too gummed up to go to school. I was there when Alpha-1 hit. Playing cards with one of the patients, a real card shark named Mr. Dugan. Smelled like cigars, no matter that Ma had banned him from smoking, he had his ways of getting them, sneaking up to the roof to smoke. I remember a real distant boom like a sudden wind picked up but like the air was being forcibly pushed by something. He looked out the window and pointed out at the East River. I looked out too and my first thought was that it was real dirty, dark like mud. Until I realized that it looked like that because we were looking at mud. All the water was gone, sucked right out.

I was real confused but Mr. Dugan knew right away what was going on. He grabbed me and we headed to the roof, yelling at anyone and everyone along the way that we had to go up and fast. I just about drained my asthma puffer dry helping as many people as I could before my Ma found me a dragged me the rest of the way upstairs. 

Everyone looked like statues, frozen in place staring Eastwards, towards the Atlantic, where a wall of water seemed to grow taller and taller. My Ma gripped me so hard I got a bruise on my shoulder. When the furthest buildings started disappearing under that wall, I finally understood that it wasn’t getting taller, but getting closer. The ocean ate the East River and now it was gonna eat all of us. 

Ma didn’t wait around to see the streets fill with water. She gave me to Mr. Dugan and went back inside to help the patients. I remember being so angry, and not because I was scared or that she left me there. I was spittin’ mad that I couldn’t go with her, I couldn’t do anything to help, I could barely get air into my lungs let alone move.

They managed to get everyone to the top floors, safe from the rising flood. At least that’s what my Ma told me, but I knew that it was a lie, they couldn’t get everyone. I knew that I could have saved more if I wasn’t so sick. I knew that much.

It was two days on that roof before we were rescued and brought to the survivor camps. It was surreal going through the Brooklyn streets in a boat instead of walking like we’d entered an alternate universe or something. Turned out to be a new world after all I guess.

My Ma being a nurse meant she was in high demand in the camps. We ended up staying in this compound of trailers that served as the main medical centre. People were being grouped and moved around every day and I never saw anyone from the old neighbourhood ever again.

There weren’t many kids around and I was never good at making friends anyways. There was one doc that worked with Ma, Dr. Erskine, who I hung around all the time, following him on his rounds getting underfoot like a puppy at his heels. He didn’t seem to mind, started letting me help out with fetching things, writing notes. He looked out for me whenever Ma went out on the recovery missions heading back into the city to find more survivors. He took me on full time when Beta-9 hit Brooklyn direct, taking home away for good and Ma with it.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Dr. Erskine was pretty high up in the food chain of the camps. By then there were more and more survivor camps as the hard rain kept falling. We ended up moving further inland right after the last blast that took out New York, to a Camp Lehigh. See, that’s where Stark Industries had a manufacturing plant about a mile down the road from the Army base turned refuge. Remember them? They had those robot assistants that were so popular in hotels and restaurants. Cornered the market in robotic bio-replacements before Hydranamics took ‘em over. See that was my Ma’s specialty, why she was picked by Dr. Erskine, taking care of robotic limbs. Not as intricate as yours, of course.”

 

Bucky looks down at his arm splayed out on the table, forearm plates open showing the mess of micro-optic cabling and nano-pistons that allow him a full range of motion and strength way beyond what his flesh arm is capable of. His palm faces up, cradled in Steve’s large warm hand, as though it were something delicate, to be handled gently with care. When had the other man come back in and sat down? Had Bucky been so frozen by his gaze that he hadn’t even noticed? He looks down, letting his chin hit his chest, the dark curtain of his hair hides him from the world. He feels Steve tug the screwdriver out of his other hand and hears the tell-tale clink of metal on metal as he gets to work. Bucky didn’t want to look. Why was he letting Steve help him? There was something about him, something in his story that Bucky was pretty damn sure he hadn’t finished telling him yet. Something hit a chord deep inside a long-neglected part of Bucky. He didn’t want to look there, not yet, so he settles on listening.

 

“The patients at Lehigh had limbs like I had never seen. Machinery so beautiful I itched to draw it, but I could never get my pencil sharp enough to get the detail right. Erskine showed me how they worked, how to care for them, how to repair. I never asked what they were for, never saw the forest for the trees you know? Looking back I guess I didn’t want to think about it. We had all lost so much.

Erskine didn’t just take me in, he helped me. There was a program at Lehigh, I didn’t look too closely at that either, medical research under the guise of boosting the human immune system to handle the radiation from the hard rain. Erskine gave me the opportunity but I was the one who volunteered. I mean, what did I have to lose? My lungs by that time were really bad like they were slowly filling up with dust, and the nuclear flu was just starting to spread. I could see Erskine was scared for me. I thought it was because I wasn’t long for this world, but looking back I see how he would get real tense whenever we went into those Stark labs. He didn’t like all the military presence, though he never said anything outright. But I took the serum and started feeling better. I could breathe! I’d make myself dizzy with all the deep breaths, it just tasted so good, you know? I started growing too. Believe it or not but I was a real shrimp before the serum. I started eating with the soldiers in the program and shot up in just six months. Up and out, so I started training with the soldiers too to direct all that weight I was gaining into something useful.

I didn’t need so much sleep anymore so when I wasn’t out running around Erskine had me working in the lab so I’d stay outta trouble. I swear I wasn’t looking to fight, the fights just found me. Never could back down from a bully, and believe me the survivor camps were full of ‘em. I can tell by your huff there that you remember.”

Steve must have found the micro pliers because Bucky could feel a gentle tugging in his wrist where he’d landed hard. It didn’t send that stinging jolt up his nerves like when Bucky did it. Steve had paused in his storytelling but the air seems to thicken in anticipation of what was coming next. Bucky risks a peek through the strands of his hair and sees Steve intently focused on straightening out Bucky’s mess, his normally boyish smile turned down at the corners. When he speaks again he sounds resigned.

“When the food started to run out the military tried to lock down Lehigh, keep the mounting unrest outside its walls, but it was too late. The attack began with an explosion. Still, don’t know how a bunch of survivors got a hold of the kind of explosives that tears through ten-inch steel like it were cardboard. The lab took the brunt of the hit and Dr. Erskine with it. Me and the other fellas in the program were sent out to find those responsible, hunt them down. When I got my hands on one of those poor assholes that had done it, felt my own fingers squeeze around that neck until I heard a bone crack, I finally accepted that I hadn’t just gotten better, I had been  _ made.  _ Made faster, stronger, not for my own good but forged into some kind of tool to do their bidding. A dancing monkey for their circus.”

Bucky draws in a quick breath and Steve’s hands still.  _ A dancing monkey.  _ Before Bucky can think on it Steve starts folding the plates of Bucky’s arm back over the open side. He sounds apologetic, “I didn’t do it. I mean these guys we found ‘em red-handed with another bomb in the works, it just didn’t feel right. It was too easy, and they didn’t know the first thing about electronics. I couldn’t kill anyone so I ran.” He smooths his hand over the surface of Bucky’s arm. When he pulls away Bucky looks up again, immediately seeking the missing warmth, and right into that earnest gaze, those twin stars burning blue flame.

“I’m sorry Buck, I don’t want to bring us back there but you gotta know that I hear you. I spent a lot of time fighting while I was searching for the truth, I have to believe that some of it was for good, but I could never forget that I was re-made for Schmidt’s secret war.”

Bucky flexes his hand, bends and stretches his fingers in a wave. He has no reason not to believe Steve, it would certainly explain the running around the mountain, the immunity to cold, and just  _ him  _ altogether _. _ But it doesn’t explain everything. He looks back up and finds Steve nervously chewing his bottom lip. Bucky ignores the sudden urge to reach out and release it. He has to know the truth. “The War was a long time ago, dancing monkey. Why are you  _ here _ , Steve. On  _ my _ mountain?”

Steve’s eyes narrow but his gaze never wavers, assessing him no doubt, trying to figure out how much Bucky already knows? Bucky doesn’t look away, just waits. It doesn’t take long before Steve’s expression moves from analytical to decisive.

“When Schmidt took over the UN and the fighting all but stopped I went back to Lehigh and the survivor camps. There were still people there but they had been abandoned completely, left to try and grow their own food, build their own shelters. Stark industries was gone, the man himself long disappeared. I tried to help out, people were doing all right for themselves. I spent that first Unity Day huddled around a fire listening to a slapped together radio spouting about how we were entering a new age. Hydranamics had successfully created the asteroid deterrent system - all hail Johann Schmidt. 

In that moment, looking around at the abandoned, I knew I had to find out what was really going on. Everyone I knew from the program was gone, Lehigh destroyed and with it any trace of the serum that re-made me. I decided to start over, find out as much as I could about Near-Earth Objects. I went North to Montreal and got into the university there under the NEO training program sponsored by Hydranamics. I had to get on the inside if I wanted to learn the truth, and back then they were scooping up anyone who could pass basic calculus. My serum-boosted memory recalled Erskine’s endless shelves of books that I had devoured years before. I was in, I started to learn, and I was good.

The one thing I wasn’t good at was toeing the line, keeping my temper. I was labelled as difficult and passed up for every opportunity to get shipped to Luna, where the real work happens, the stuff no one earthbound knows about. The one good thing about being passed over was being left alone, underestimated, and sent off to the far corners of the planet to take care of the jobs no one else wanted.

It was on one of these trips, at an observatory in the middle of nowhere in the North Eastern Sector, used to be Russia, remember that? When there were countries instead of Sectors that revolve around Central. Took forever to get there but in the end, it was worth everything, all my failures to assimilate, the frustration of pretending I was one of them. It was there I met a group of people who were just like me, NEO researchers who just  _ knew  _ that there was something wrong about how things were going, how they had gotten to where they were, a system that was rotten to the core. 

We watched, learned, compared notes and started uncovering the web created by the UN, Hydranamics, and Schmidt in the middle of it all.”

 

Bucky nods, running his good hand over his beard. It’s like his fears and suspicions, everything that keeps him on his mountain unwilling to leave, have just been laid out before him. Instead of turning away and hiding again, like the rising nausea in his stomach is trying to get him to do, he finds what he really wants is to start turning those suspicions over, take a good look and see what makes them tick. 

Steve is here to spy on Hydranamics by what? Pointing the scopes at the moon? It would explain the filters but ...  _ Uggghhhh I am going to regret this.  _ He starts to put the tools away, trying to suppress the warmth moving up from where Steve had so carefully fixed him and straight into a flush he just knows is turning his face red. He ignores his embarrassment and nods again at Steve, who for his part looks like he’s about to either duck behind a chair or stand up on the table and speechify again. “If you can promise me that you’re gonna be careful, I don’t want anyone from Central coming to sniff around my home, you hear me?” Steve nods enthusiastically. “I’m going to help you, Stevie.”  _ You just can’t not smile like the sun can’t you, golden bastard.  _ When Steve holds out his hand Bucky reaches out to take it, and when they let go Bucky can’t help but follow where Steve leads, back outside, into the truck and up the mountain to get back to work.

  
  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luis comes to the Mountain.
> 
> \--> Check out LittleBlackFox's absolutely beautiful artwork in this chapter!

 

_ Brrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzz !!! SMASH !!! _

 

Bucky crashes his prosthetic hand down on his bedside alarm with enough force to send it skittering to the floor. He buries his face into his pillow and groans. The downside is he may need to replace the cracked display. The upside is that it switched to the radio when it hit the floor so he doesn’t need to get up right away. He rolls over and stares at the ceiling weakly lit by the morning cloud cover.  _ I’m getting too old for this.  _ He rubs his bleary eyes with his flesh hand and stares at the ceiling as he listens to the newsreel. Every word out of the newscaster’s mouth, every line of Hydranamics propaganda, even the damn weather forecast takes on a new sinister tone that Bucky just can’t ignore any longer. Forest fires have moved south of Central due to prevailing winds, thousands have been evacuated to the safety of the city limits. UN council has convened to finalize the global unification, consolidating local governments in a single political system. Be sure to update your Lunar Comms so you can tune in this winter for the first ever Lunar Olympics! Not to worry if you’re in a No-Zone - just 5 travel credits will get you to your Sector’s capital where every municipality will be screening the games live in the local Unity Square. A cold front will be moving in from the North, 60% chance of a mix of rain and snow giving way to clear skies and lower temperatures overnight. Remember to get to your local Stores for the Winter surplus. Register for Superplus Member access and beat the crowds!

 

Buck rolls out of bed and lands on his hands and knees on the floor. Three and a half hours of sleep aren’t nearly enough, why did he even bother? After agreeing to help Steve try and discover the truth behind Schmidt and Hydranamics they’d gone straight to Howlie. The bot had been infuriatingly calm about it all, as though spying on what was essentially their employer had been the plan all along and they were just waiting for the humans to catch up. The logistics of spying while maintaining the set observing routines that were expected by the Central computers had been fairly complicated and were still a work in progress. Or at least that is what Bucky assumed since by 03:00 after the third time his head had hit his keyboard Steve had insisted he go back to the Red Cabin and get some rest. 

He crawls over to the window using the ledge as leverage to pull himself up and rest his forehead against the cool glass. A few upbeat pop songs cut with rolling waves of static that almost send Bucky back to la-la land later and he finally gets to his feet to start his stretches. In the far distance, beyond the Northern peaks, dark clouds start to gather, the boughs of the pines surrounding the cabin bending under the nearly constant wind. Hydranamics may be full of shit but their weather forecasts are pretty damn reliable. Bucky had better get a move on if he wants to get back to work before getting caught out in the storm.

 

Buck stands in front of the coffee machine with the greatest dilemma he’s faced in what feels like his entire adult life. Does he use the rest of the coffee to brew a full strength pot in the hopes that Luis will show up sooner rather than later? Or does he ration it, and sacrifice his dwindling sanity in order to have several days of slightly caffeinated brown-ish water? “Fuck it.” He dumps the rest of the beans in the grinder and asks the Stars to burn a path through the trees so Luis can get here as soon as humanly possible. 

 

As Bucky pulls in beside the unfinished building of the big telescope he is regretting all his life choices that have led him to this moment. His head is pounding and he is so damn bleary-eyed from lack of sleep that he stumbles twice as he moves around the truck. He grabs the thermos and the extra cups and practically breaks down the door in his haste to get inside and get some coffee in him. He sets the cups down, grunts a greeting to Steve’s cheery  _ Good morning!  _ and gets right down to pouring the liquid life. He takes a sip, burning his tongue in his desperation but not giving a single crap, takes the other cup to hand to Steve and turns to find two boots where Steve’s face should be. Bucky stops short, blinks a few times, then follows those long legs and powerful thighs leading to a toned abdomen thick with muscle and finally to that sunshine smile powered by a truly unfathomable energy. 

Steve is currently upside down doing a handstand in the middle of the monitoring station, shirtless and glowing.  _ It is way too early for this.  _ Bucky gulps and opens his mouth a few times to say something but nothing comes out. Steve reaches out with one hand, putting all of his considerable weight on the other without a single wobble, and gestures for Bucky to hand him the coffee. Bucky looks supremely unimpressed, “No coffee until you stand up straight. This is all very,” he gestures to Steve’s entire self, “super, or whatever, but this coffee is damn hot and even more damn precious and I ain’t risking you spilling.”

Steve looks put out but does as he’s told and straightens upright with a little backflip that Bucky is pretty sure is completely unnecessary. “Sorry Buck, just trying to get some exercise in. Didn’t want to go for a run and get caught out in the storm.” He throws on his shirt and Bucky feels like a cloud has blotted out the sun. Steve takes the cup and cocks a brow, “Thanks. So, did you get some rest?”.

The caution in Steve’s voice raises his hackles. Bucky doesn’t deign to answer that and just sips his own cup. “Where we at with the comms?”

Howlie pops up from behind a stack of boxes like a huge metallic jackrabbit and scares the shit out of Bucky. A few drops of coffee splash onto his thumb and he quickly jams it in his mouth before he loses the precious liquid. 

“We have enabled a secure VOIP connection, Buck-ee, but it is patchy, to say the least. I had to repurpose the audio feedback from the LMT in order to get enough parts for a mic and speaker, but considering that the Sierra-Negra is still level 1 radioactive, I doubt there is anyone left there to send a signal to us anyways.”

Steve is looking at him strangely, but before Bucky can ask what’s up he moves over to his laptop set up on the desk next to the ancient Freenet machine and takes a seat. Bucky rolls another chair over, kicks Steve out of _his_ chair, and settles down to see the new setup. 

Steve rolls his eyes at the chair swap, but wisely chooses his battles and settles in next to Bucky. “I was able to get through to my friends in the North Eastern Sector a few hours ago, but the bandwidth doesn’t support the audio very well so there’s a bit of a lag between talking and being heard. Kinda like talking through two tin cans connected by a ten thousand kilometer string. But, you know, better than nothing.” Steve tosses him a cocky grin, obviously pleased by their progress. “We should be expecting a call soon.”  

Bucky will reserve judgement until he hears it for himself, “Mmm hmmm.” They sip their coffee in silence while Howlie gets back to the scheduled monitoring work. Bucky’s eyes drift closed despite the coffee. He tries to focus on Steve’s doodling to keep himself awake, but it just seems to be a series of swirls running into and out of the edges of the used lab book he’s drawing in. His long graceful fingers tracing out arc after arc, the soft scratch of a pencil against paper, are all working against Bucky’s consciousness. He tries talking to keep himself present, “So, dancing monkey, eh? It’s you and your friends on the amateur astronomer forum, isn’t it? Don’t look surprised, Steve, it all fit together pretty quickly after your story yesterday. Pretty clever venue for keeping in touch. I’m impressed.”

Steve smiles shyly and looks down at his paper. “I had to come back, I was the only one who had the clearances to travel back to Central where the greater chances of getting some solid info are. This installation, your Mountain, is the perfect spot to complete the 24 hour surveillance on Luna. Once we get it set up properly, we’ll be able to monitor comings and goings, maybe even comms, all the time.” Steve looks back up and Bucky would swear he was blushing, “Thanks to you, Buck.”

Bucky is saved a reply by the sound of an incoming call. Steve accepts it and a series of clicks is heard over the speaker. Steve speaks into the mic, “Black Widow, Black Widow, this is Dancing Monkey, do you read?” Bucky chortles into his cup but Steve is all business and ignores him.

A few seconds pass before the reply comes in, and a female voice, heavy with a North Eastern Sector accent, comes back with, “This isn’t a walkie-talkie, Cap, and I think we can tone down the codenames. There’s not a hack in this solar system that can trace my security protocols. Did your mountain man get his beauty sleep yet? I am dying to talk to our latest member.”

Steve runs a hand over his face and risks a peek at Bucky, who is in mild shock. “Mountain man?” he mouths questioningly at Steve. The golden bastard shrugs apologetically as Bucky crosses his arms self-consciously over his plaid flannel covered chest. This is going to be a long morning.   

 

“Buck-ee, I have an idea.”

Bucky braces himself. It was never a good sign when Howlie tries to set him up gently instead of just leading with what they should do. The last time the bot had done that Bucky had found himself suspended from the lip of the Tower’s cupola trying to safely move an eagle’s nest before the mother came back. He still has the pecking scars. “Hit me.”

“No, I will not. Perhaps Steeve can help you with your masochistic tendencies. I have an idea to improve the bandwidth of our network connection.”

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and counts down for patience. At least Steve isn’t there, having returned to his residence to get some sleep after a painfully stilted conversation with Nat due to the lag in the audio. Steve had been so serious, even a little bossy, when talking with his network. He could tell that his friends respected him, even if they cracked a few jokes at his expense mostly just to get Steve to lighten up. Bucky had found it adorable. There was that word again, but he couldn’t help it. Steve was a natural born leader but it was just so different than the way he behaved with Bucky. Steve had tried to pull that bossiness on him, insisting that he could walk back down the mountain despite the storm, but Bucky had shut that down real quick. Even Howlie let out his tinny laugh at Steve’s stubbornness quoting the percent probability that he would be successful. It was 12% - Bucky would have loved to know how Howlie thought Steve could have won even a modicum of that argument, but he set it aside in order to get Steve in the truck. And good thing too as the storm pelted them with pea-sized hail. Eventually, the hail had given way to rain which was falling on the unfinished building creating a cacophony of sound. Bucky took a steadying breath, “Do tell.”

“The only way to improve the connection is to link directly to one of the comm towers. Using IR transmission we just need line of sight. Unfortunately, that is not possible from the mountain as the nearest communications tower lies along the far side of the valley south of Cerro Picacho del Diablo.”

Bucky frowns at the bot, “Are you suggesting we … drive there?” His stomach flips at the thought of leaving the mountain. Maybe Steve could go? But with the snows coming it could be really dangerous. There was always the snowmobile, that was almost like riding a motorcycle... 

“No, Buck-ee, do not think on that, that will not be necessary.” Howlie’s tone is distinctly soothing, at least Bucky has always taken comfort in the calm monotone. “I am thinking about the Land Watcher drone that flies by every day. If we could upload a simple protocol, then I could use its transmission capabilities to create a link between us and the comm tower. At least when it is the vicinity.”

Bucky’s jaw drops open and he stares at Howlie. He shuts his mouth when he sees he’s just staring at his own reflection in the bots face screen. “You want to what? Catch one of those Hydranamics birds? Without anyone from Drone Control noticing.”

“I am capable of a secure protocol with an encryption key that would be impossible to decrypt unless there was another me.”

“There ain’t no one like you, pal. Does your idea include catching one of those birds without being, you know, watched the entire time?”

The single green cursor pulses a few times on Howlie’s screen, “No. I do not have current information on the Earth Watcher program. I do not think inquiring to the Central computers would be conducive to stealth.”

Bucky slaps the bots side in a friendly gesture, “No, it wouldn’t. Let’s sleep on it and go hunting tomorrow.”

 

The rain eases into a gentle drizzle and luckily the temperature stays warm enough to melt any ice that may have accumulated on the road from the hail. Bucky decides to attach the plough to the truck just in case. It would be hell to get caught at the top in a surprise snow squall without it. He lets Howlie continue at the big telescope and picks up Dum-Dum and Gabe to help attach the blade. They pull into the parking lot at the residences and Dum-Dum goes to one of the buildings they’ve been using for storage. 

Steve comes loping out of his place, pulling a hoodie over his head to protect from the rain. “Morning Buck, it’s like walking through a cloud out here.”

“Evening Steve.” Just as Bucky is pulling on his own jacket, a loud rumble starts up through the trees, quickly approaching them. Steve’s eyes are comically saucer-like as he startles and looks to Bucky in alarm, “What is that?”

He starts to back away towards his door but Bucky stops him with a hand, “Wait.” He listens as the rumbling gets louder and along with it something higher pitched, rising in tone until Bucky recognizes it. He smiles, “Ya llegó”.

Steve blinks, “Huh?...is that...music?”

Bucky grabs Steve’s arm and pulls him to his side and onto the grass beside the lot just as a massive camper van pulls around the corner. Bucky’s cheeks hurt already, he just can’t stop grinning, “It’s Luis.”

A decked out camper with ridiculous suspension over massive wheels covered in chains and blaring mariachi music comes to a sudden stop in the spot next to the truck. The engine turns off but the music keeps going as Luis sticks his head out the window, “Yo yo yo my man! How’re you doing bro!” Luis jumps out of the van and practically leaps into Bucky, who wraps him in a one-armed hug. 

“It’s good to see you, Luis.”

Luis steps back, “You too, man! Look at you! What is wrong with your face bro, what turned that frown upside down amigo and don’t say it’s just because yours truly has finally arrived.” Luis finally looks over at Steve who is giving a polite smile if not a trepidatious one. Bucky realizes that he is still hanging on to his arm and slowly lets go. Luis holds out his hand to Steve, “I don’t think we’ve met, pretty sure I’d remember you, you know? Since you’re so big. I’m Luis.”

Steve shakes his hand, “Steve. I think you’d be pretty hard to forget yourself, Luis. That was quite an entrance.”

“Oh yeah sorry about that, probably scared off all the wildlife you know, but that storm earlier was making me a bit jumpy and with Bucky here insisting on living on the top of nowhere at the end of a long ass windy road through a dark forest with lions, and tigers, and bears, I just put on a little Vicente Fernandez. Just to bring up the mood, keep me company.” He pulls a remote out of his pocket and flicks it towards the camper and the music turns off. He turns back around rubbing his hands together in anticipation, “All right my dudes, who’s ready for a trade?”

 

While Bucky and the bots attach the snow plough to the truck, Steve helps Luis bring boxes upon boxes into his residence. Of course, the guy can’t help but show off a bit, carrying at least four boxes at a time. And of course, Bucky can’t help but stare a little - Steve in his too tight t-shirt literally steaming as the cold drizzle vaporizes upon hitting his skin.  _ Dammit! _ He sticks his thumb in his mouth where he had accidentally pinched the skin while screwing on the last bolt.  _ Pay attention, Barnes. _

When they’re done with the truck they hustle into Steve’s place to dry off and see what Luis has brought. 

“Yo! Gabe, my man! I brought something for you dude. I know you been indoor bound when the white fluffy stuff starts to fall, but I found this studded tread that Buck here can repurpose for ya, you’ll be rolling up and down this mountain all winter. Aw, come on, Dum-Dum, as if I would forget you. Still on the lookout for those audio parts, sorry about that bro, but I did find this!” Luis pulls out an old digital music player with adaptor cables trailing after it like a mechanical jellyfish. Dum Dum holds out his massive hands and carefully takes the music player. 

Bucky helps him hook it into his main control panel, “Play us a song, big guy.”

Immediately some pop music with sweet vocals starts playing. Luis’ grin is contagious, “Picked that one up from this funky lady who was travelling into Central, was just gonna leave it behind if you can believe that! Searching for a better life and all that, so sure that Central will provide, good luck ammiright? Traded her some ration packs for it, at least that’ll get her to the border.” He moves over to the long table in the main room and starts opening boxes, “Ok let me show you what I brought before we see what we can do for trading.”

An unholy rumble comes from the other side of the table and everyone looks to Steve’s stomach. He rubs his belly, “Then maybe we could think about breakfast, I mean, dinner?” He looks to Bucky hopefully, as though Bucky could deny those doe eyes. 

Luis goes over to a large plastic container and opens it, beckoning for them to come over and have a look, “Here’s my special care package, my special gift to you guys, no trading for this one, you got it?” He points at Bucky who raises his hands in surrender.

“I wouldn’t dream of insulting you, pal.” Bucky leans over the box and is immediately hit with the rich smell of roasted coffee beans. He looks up with wide eyes and finds Steve staring back at him over the box with an equal look of wonder. “Do you see what I see Stevie.”

“If you see a box full of magic beans, then yes, Buck, I see it too.” 

The sunshine smile makes an appearance and Bucky has to be careful not to stare too long with this dreamy look in his eyes.  _ I’m just excited about the coffee.  _ He hastily averts his gaze and starts rummaging around the box.  _ Oh, what have we here?  _ He pulls out a couple of large cans and holds them up, “Jackpot fellas. I’m making dinner tonight.”

While Bucky heads over to the Red Cabin to start dinner Steve and Luis pack up the foodstuffs to bring over. Bucky just has a good broth going for the pozole when Steve bursts through the door yelling, “Buck! Check out what I got!”

Bucky seizes, his robotic arm twitching under the force of working against his instincts - he’s not wasting any more food by throwing it in self-defence. “Steven goddamit, what have I told you about my nerves.”

Steve settles several large boxes on the dining table and turns to the kitchen. He lays one of his large warm hands on Bucky’s flesh arm and rubs up and down, “Aw geez, sorry Buck. Oh man, it smells good in here! I swear my stomach is about to eat itself.”

Bucky caves and leans into Steve’s hand as he gets himself under control. He swallows and clears his throat, resumes slicing the radishes. He gestures over to the table, “So what did you get, Stevie, and please don’t tell me Luis talked you into trading your bike.”

Steve bounds back over to the table and starts setting up some equipment, “Yeah right. Nah, just my sunglasses and some motorcycle gear I didn’t really need.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, “Like the kinda gear that keeps you from getting killed?”

“No,” Steve answers primly, “the kind of gear that keeps away the road rash. It’s just my leathers. It was for Peggy, Buck. Totally worth it.”

Bucky finishes up the garnishes and fishes a bottle of hot sauce from the pantry that he’d canned last year. He sets in on the table and stands across from Steve watching him delicately put a record on the turntable, “An amp, some speakers and some new records. Well, old new records.” He turns on the system and looks delighted when the record starts spinning. Bucky bites his lip hard to keep from smiling at him.  _ You’re too much, Rogers.  _ Steve gently places the needle and the beginnings of an upbeat ska band start to play. He starts bobbing his head to the music, smiling like a madman, eyes shining and alive. Bucky can feel himself responding to him, bobbing his own head and smiling back.

Luis comes bouncing in, “You go, gozadora! Oh, my gawd brah, this is so wicked, your girl sure plays nice. She named after someone special?”

Bucky watches Steve closely - the slightest tightening around the eyes.  _ Peggy is real.  _ Something cold and hard presses down on his chest and he turns around and heads back to the kitchen.

As he grabs the bowls he strains to hear Steve’s response, “Yeah, I had a professor. Margaret Carter. Brilliant, scary. It was hers.”

“Aw man, she ain’t around no more is she?” 

Bucky cringes internally.  _ Luis! _

“No, she was on board the SpaceX Dragon V when…” Steve’s voice trails off. Bucky flashes on the news footage from that disaster - first commercial flight to Luna carrying some of the most well known NEO scientists of the time explodes shortly after takeoff. Had it been a pressure leak? Faulty fuel tank lining? He can’t remember and quickly focuses back on the steaming pot in front of him before anything unwanted from the past comes back to bite him in the ass.

“Say no more man. Well, at least ol’ Luis here could help this Peggy sing, ya know? And I got way more vinyl in the van we gotta try out!”

“Sure, Luis, and thanks.”

The pressure in Bucky’s chest settles over his heart when he hears the sadness in Steve’s voice. He hates it, hearing Steve that way is just … wrong. He fills the bowl, sprinkles some of the dried oregano from his garden over top and brings it out.

 

           Bucky stands stupidly in front of Steve. At least he feels stupid, suddenly unable to speak or move. The bowl of pozole in his hands suddenly feels as though he’s holding out a piece of himself. Steve takes it gently, as though it were something precious that Bucky was handing him. “Thank you.” The big golden lug says it like Bucky is handing him the stars.  _ It’s just a damn bowl of soup.  _ Bucky growls to himself but his throat closes up completely when the corners of Steve’s mouth start to turn up. He feels frozen in place when the smile starts, a simultaneous  _ oh no!  _ and  _ yessss  _ warring in his mind. Steve smiles with his whole being, as though he’s expanding outwards, lifted by his heart, eyes twinkling in the soft light. Bucky’s hands linger as Steve pulls the bowl from him. As his arms fall away and he starts to come back to himself he sees Luis at the table, eyes flitting between them, grinning like a kid in a candy store, practically bouncing in his seat. Bucky looks away and clears his throat, “You’re welcome.” He turns back to the kitchen to get his own bowl pulling the collar of his shirt away from the sudden sweat that broke out along his chest and neck. As he spoons his dinner into a bowl the record moves on to the next song, the music changing from the upbeat ska to a rhythmic bass overlaid with a sultry voice. He’s gonna kill Luis.

He brings two more bowls over to the table but Steve is up and out of his chair, “Oh man, oh no. This song Luis, what have you done?” Bucky looks over alarmed until he sees Steve grinning, holding out his hand to Luis.

Luis has his hands up in front of himself defensively, “Oh sorry dude unless the dance is jumping up and down in one spot I just can’t do it. Save your feet bro.”

Steve turns on Bucky, eyes full of mischief. Bucky tries not to panic. _What is happening?_ Steve takes the bowls out of Bucky’s hands, setting one in front of Luis, then swings back to Bucky. He holds out a hand, his eyes hopeful and daring at the same time. Bucky glances quickly at Luis who is nodding at him furiously. He shrugs internally. _What the hell._ He takes Steve’s hand in his flesh one and settles his metallic hand on his shoulder. Steve immediately starts to sway to the music and they fall a little closer together. _Like gravity._ This close Bucky notices that he barely comes up to Steve’s nose. Bucky’s mind immediately goes blank as they get into a rhythm. By the second chorus, Steve has stepped on his feet no less than three times. “That’s it, Rogers, I’m leading.” He pulls Steve’s hand up to his shoulder and grabs his waist with the other, pulling him in a little closer with the force. 

Steve looks down at him starry-eyed and mouth parted in surprise. “Where’d you learn to dance, Buck?”

Bucky huffs and looks around Steve’s shoulder. Luis is blowing on his pozole when he looks up and mouths _You’re welcome._ He glances up at Steve but cannot take his laser-like focus at the moment. He talks to his shoulder instead, “My sisters loved to dance and made me practice with them. They really loved a good crooner.” He remembers what it felt like but he can’t quite remember their faces.

He moves Steve around the space between the kitchen and the table and when the song ends he twirls him into his seat. Without looking at either of them Bucky sits down and grabs his spoon, “Now eat your damn pozole or I won’t take you for another spin around the kitchen.”

 

The pozole was a success with Steve claiming it as his new favourite thing ever and all but interrogating Luis about how much canned corn he could get his hands on or if it was still possible to grow it. Bucky breaks the bad news that he would have done that years ago if it weren’t for the altitude on the Mountain. Steve leaves to get to work on the telescopes and Luis goes back to his camper for the night after extracting a promise from Bucky to have the coffee brewed by the time he comes over the next morning. Bucky falls face first onto his bed, exhausted from the sheer quantity of human interaction. Interaction that included dancing with Steve to a romantic song. Thrice.  _ Oh, I am so fucked. _

 

They meet at the picnic table outside Steve’s the next morning around 0900 for coffee and some sugary cookies Luis had brought. They talk business for a while, Bucky having two crates of food he’d canned himself, onions and root vegetables from his summer garden to trade, along with some defunct observing equipment that could be recycled for their components. They start to gossip, mostly stories from Luis’ travels. Some of his usual stops have up and left for Central or other urban centres. Whole towns just left behind. Some people he meets looking for a place to settle so he points them in the right direction adds them to his route, but the new people are few and far between. Bucky asks if he’d run into any roadblocks from the forest fires but Luis hasn’t seen a single puff of smoke.

At 1000 the lone land watcher flies by and all three men raise their fingers in salute. Luis adds his own colourful phrases, making Steve and Bucky snicker. As they watch it pass over the trees and out of sight Bucky suddenly remembers Howlie’s idea.

“Howlie wants us to catch that bird if you can believe it. Says they have a plan to boost our comms if they can modify the programming.”

Steve’s eyes narrow in warning at Bucky as Luis looks between them, “Catch and release? What you need amped comms for?” He starts bouncing in his seat with barely restrained glee, “You guys are up to something aren’t you.”

Bucky doesn’t take his eyes from Steve’s. He nods reassuringly, “I trust Luis.”

That seems to be enough for Steve and his eyes immediately gentle, his face relaxing.

“Aw, thanks, man.” Luis holds his fist out and Bucky gives him a reluctant bump. He always feels ridiculous doing it.

Steve leans in conspiratorially, “Have you ever wondered, Luis, why Hydranamics keeps diverting resources to Luna, all the while there is less and less for those of us left on Earth?”

“Oh, my god bruh, only like all the time. The UN is just the administrative branch of Hydranamics.” Steve raises his eyebrow at that, obviously impressed. Luis leans in closer, “My best friend Scott works at Drone Command and he tells me that they keep shipping his co-workers off to Luna and not replacing them, it’s just like him and two other guys to cover all the drones for the entire Central Sector. And like no one even cares anymore, they just upload to the Central computers, but seriously? What they just store all that data over years and years? Have some fancy AI farm analysing petabytes of frames? They haven’t upgraded those cameras since they were deployed, and that was what? Fifteen years ago at least bro! Nah man, I ain’t buying it. Something is up.”

Bucky pours the rest of the coffee amongst them, “You think you can contact Scott, see if we can get him to stop recording or something when we try to catch that bird?”

Luis rubs his chin, “Nah I don’t have better comms than you here even if I get down to the coast. Always takes a few days minimum for messages between us.” His eyes light up and he slaps the table, making both Steve and Bucky jump.

“Dammit, Luis!”

“I know how we can catch it yo! Lightning strikes.”

Steve side-eyes him, “Lightning strikes.”

Luis starts nodding, “Yeah dude, lightening. Those birds get hit all the time, knocks em right out of the sky. There’s like a five-minute reboot cycle or something, say three minutes to play it safe, then they get right back up again. Howlie’s a player I know it! Wouldn’t need more than 30 seconds tops!”

Bucky looks between Luis and a nodding Steve like they’re nuts, “Kinda hard to fake a lightning storm and really hard to avoid getting hit yourself. No, Steve, I can see you picturing it, just stop that shit line of thinking right now.”

But it was too late, Steve had that look of pure, unadulterated determination, “We can do this Bucky, aren’t they calling for more storms tomorrow morning?” Three heads swivel towards the North West where distant cloud cover lurks along the coast. A warm breeze rustles Bucky’s hair, mocking him. Steve continues his plan, “We can hit it with something, a charge or a rock, whatever. Or set a trap, a mesh would be really hard to spot on the low res drone video. We can set up a flash to make it seem like it got hit if the footage is ever reviewed.”

Despite himself, Bucky adds, “The mesh would have to be electrified with enough charge to knock it out if it’s going to seem legit.” 

Steve and Luis look like Bucky just gave them permission to eat cake for dinner. Luis bounces in his seat while Steve looks around at the trees, probably looking for the tallest one he could climb. Bucky gets up from the table. _Ah hell, we’re really going to do this._ He sighs, resigned, “Let’s go get Howlie.”

“I told you it was a good idea, Buck-ee.” They find themselves crammed into the second story computer lab of the Tower where Howlie now has Morita and Dernier helping search the cupboards and boxes for the appropriate materials for an electrified mesh.

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I reserve judgement on the merit of your ideas until after they are successful. We don’t want to fry any actual birds so we’ll need a switch.” Bucky was starting to get nervous about this entire enterprise. What if Scott was wrong and Land Watcher footage was being scrutinized more than ever? What if their stunt brings officials swarming all over the Mountain? 

A warm hand over his shoulder jolts him out of his circular thoughts, “It’s gonna be alright, Buck. There won’t be any invasion.”

That gets a laugh out of him. He looks over at Steve, “Been talking out loud to myself again, have I?”

Steve rubs his hand in a small circle and the warmth radiates across Bucky’s skin. He could get used to this. Steve’s eyes are as warm as his hands with the same effect on Bucky’s insides, “No, no, you haven’t started babbling to yourself, yet.”

“Punk!” On impulse Bucky pokes him under the ribs where he knows Steve is sensitive. 

Steve hops away but bounces back to his side just as quick and bumps Bucky’s shoulder with his decidedly large one , “Jerk!” He leans in closer, “Come on, Buck, I know you well enough by now to at least have an idea of what’s going on in there.” It looks like Steve is about to tap him on his skull and Bucky musters the appropriately annoyed look, but halfway there he seems to change his mind and pushes the strands of hair that have fallen over Buck’s eye back behind his ear. Bucky hadn’t realized how often his hair was covering his view until now. He feels vulnerable in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time, as though there is nothing between him and Steve.

“Yo!” Bucky and Steve jump away from each other at Luis’ yell, as though they had been caught doing something forbidden, but Luis isn’t paying attention to them specifically. He is holding up a roll of filament and addressing the room, “How ‘bout this?” 

Bucky practically runs over to Luis and takes the spool out of his hands to inspect it, “This should do.”

Howlie is immediately looming over his shoulder, “Luis, you have an excellent eye.”

Bucky grouses, “Hey, you never compliment me when I find something in this mess.”

Howlie blinks his cursor at him, “If you are done with your tantrum, Buck-ee, then I suggest we get on with it.”

Bucky balks.  _ I’ll show you a tantrum.  _ He glares at Luis and mouths  _ Suck up  _ which just makes Luis giggle. He stalks off to Dernier who had found an appropriate power source. He can hear Steve snickering behind him so he rounds on him, pointing. Steve holds up his hands in surrender but his shit-eating grin gets Bucky’s blood going. The fact that it’s not an altogether unpleasant feeling annoys the hell out of him. “You! It’s bedtime, Rogers. You’ll be doing a lot of climbing tomorrow and I ain’t gonna catch you if you fall out of some damn tree.”

 

By 0700 the next morning the sun is barely penetrating the dense and roiling cloud cover and Bucky is standing under a massive pine tree, exactly where he shouldn’t be in a storm, squinting upwards and trying to keep his eyes on that big blond bastard as he sways precariously at the top with nothing short of a look of glee. He is exhausted from a long night working on the trap for the drone and worried as hell that Steve is going to fall out of the tree and break his neck. Luis stands beside him in his pajamas and hoodie with a massive neon-orange pump-action water gun to be used as a deterrent to prevent the local wildlife from getting caught in the net. Howlie is standing by with an array of connection adaptors, one of which had better connect to the drone when they get it down.  _ This is fucking ridiculous. _ Bucky keeps his arms out in front of him as Steve makes his way down the tree. When his foot slips in the morning dew Bucky’s heart jumps into his throat and his arms go straight out as he rushes under the tree.

“I’m OK!” Steve gets his footing, lowers to another branch, then jumps the rest of the way, landing in a crouch next to a frantic Bucky who still holds his arms out. He straightens up and gives Bucky a wink, “One more to go.”

“Can you please come out of the next tree like a normal person whose knees can’t take the pressure of dropping 10 feet.” 

Steve slings an arm over his shoulder, his grin is way too cocky for this early in the morning. He puts his other hand over his heart and declares, “You gotta let me be me, Buck.”

Luis aims his water gun directly at Steve’s abs and shoots, making the big lug squeal and jump away. He keeps shooting as Steve leaps around trying to dodge the spray, “Go make us some coffee super-dude!” 

Steve cheerily obliges and runs off down the slope towards the residences leaping through the undergrowth like a deer. Bucky and Howlie gather the end of the net and carefully stretch it across to another tree taller than the first one. Bucky attaches the power source, testing the switch and current once more with his pocket multimeter. He looks up across the bit of sky where the net will hang, just about invisible, “You sure this is going to work?”

“Nothing in this universe has a non-zero probability of failure, Buck-ee, but that also applies to success.”

Bucky shrugs his shoulders, “Are we talking 1% failure or 99%?”

“Yes.” 

And now Bucky knows that Howlie is not telling him on purpose because the bot definitely knows their chances. “You’re the worst.”

“There is a non-zero chance you mean to say I am the best.”

“Yeah, you’re the best,” Bucky concedes, hiding his smile from the bot. “C’mon, let's get this show on the road.”

 

Hours later and the drone is due to fly by any minute. The trap is in place and the guys are huddled together in the truck hidden under a stand of trees to stay safe from the rain. Some thunder and lightning had passed about fifteen minutes earlier and now it was pouring rain. Bucky nervously taps the steering wheel with his thumbs, “I don’t think they’re gonna fall for it.”

Steve wipes the fog off the windshield for the umpteenth time and scans the sky, “It’s gonna work, Buck.” 

Luis passes around the bag of cookies, “Yeah man you worry too much. You’ve been away from the world so long you’ve gotten paranoid. I’m telling you there ain’t no one there to even notice and we’re still taking precautions.”

Bucky grumbles at the dashboard, “It’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you.” Luis and Steve look at him with disbelief until Bucky can’t keep a straight face any longer and cracks up. Steve shoves him into the door and he takes it savouring the closeness. Part of him knows that isolating himself maybe hasn’t done him any favours in the sanity department but another part of him really does feel like they’re being watched. 

Suddenly Howlie taps on the back window making them all jump. Their voice is distorted through the rain and glass, “It’s time.”

The guys pull up their hoods and scramble out of the truck. They are drenched in seconds but at least the danger from electrocution has passed. At least Bucky hopes so, considering he’s about to set live wires in a torrential downpour. He scans the sky but can’t see anything. Howlie uses their radar, “It is approximately one minute out and right on course.”

Bucky flips the switch on the mesh and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds himself still alive. He grabs the switch for the flash and keeps his eyes on the trap. About half a minute later and he sees it, the same bird he’s been making rude gestures to for the past 5 years. “Sorry little guy.” 

The drone flies right into the mesh, just about ripping a hole in it from its momentum. Bucky lets the flash go off just as the drone starts shorting out from the current. As it starts to fall, Bucky shuts off the power to the mesh. Steve and Luis dash out to catch it but one wing tangles itself in the wires, halting its decent about 10 feet from the ground.

_ Shit shit shit shit _ Bucky dashes out to help, they only have a window of a few minutes. Steve takes a few running leaps but he can’t loosen the drone even if he can touch it. “Put Luis on your shoulders!” he yells as he runs up, Howlie at his side. 

It takes a few tries before they get Luis up, but it’s raining so hard that it takes him another minute to get the drone free. He passes it down to Bucky who holds it upside down in his arms, leaning over it to try and shelter it from the rain. He fumbles in his pocket for the right screwdriver to open the access panel and makes quick work of it. By now Steve is pressed to one side and Luis on the other, Howlie in front of him.

Luis takes the screws and coos, “Aw, it’s kinda cute up close, like a real bird but bigger. And made of metal.”

Steve holds up the connection adapters, “I think we should name it Red Wing.” Bucky selects the right connector and attaches it. “I have a buddy Sam, he’s in the network and now maybe we’ll be able to talk to him. He’s a real bird enthusiast, even has his own falcon that looks a little bit like this guy.”

Steve’s arms are now under Bucky’s, helping hold up the drone. It’s hard to too annoyed when that golden warmth is pressed right up against him, but still! “Guys, we are not naming the bird. Do not get attached to this spy in the sky.”

“It is now our spy in the sky, Buck-ee. Besides, you just referred to it as a bird and I have now initiated the Red Wing protocol.” Howlie unhooks the connector with one clawed hand. “System restart in twenty seconds. I suggest you set this bird free.”

Bucky places the drone carefully on the ground away from the trap and practically launches himself into the undergrowth. He rights himself and peers through the leaves just in time to see the drones lights start blinking. Steve is beside him looking out in wonder, whispering under his breath, “Go, little guy, you can do it.”

Bucky would be annoyed if it wasn’t so damn adorable. As it is he watches as Red Wing rights itself, hovers a few feet above the ground for a few moments before taking off at full speed, hoping that this plan works.

 

The afternoon finds the group sprawled out in front of the fire in the Red Cabin living room, dry, warm and bellies full from the leftover pozole. The night before Bucky had shimmied up his radio antennae and attached a microwave receiver, and now he and Howlie sat on the rug, laptop and receiver set up on the coffee table, trying to connect to Red Wing. Luis was reading a mystery novel in one chair while Steve dozed laid out along the sofa behind Bucky. If he leaned back he could feel Steve’s soft breath along his neck. It was unusually calming, so of course, it couldn’t last forever.

“Buck-ee, connection established with Redwing.”

Luis immediately sets down his book and lets out a  _ whoop! _ He lands hard on the ground next to Bucky, pushing his face in front of the screen, “What are we looking at, amigos?”

Steve starts to stir behind him and Bucky feels the fine hair on his temple as he shoves his face in front of the screen on the other side, “What’s going on? Did it work?”

Bucky tries to remain calm with so much human in his personal space. Steve’s hair smells like tropical fruit which helps. “Talk to us buddy, please tell me we haven’t been busted.”

Howlie types a few commands in the console and a stream of text scrolls by. “We haven’t been detected. Nor are we likely to be.”

Luis cheers and Steve lets out a breath he had been holding and rests his chin on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky is so relieved he can’t even feel shy about it.

“Patching into the video feed.” A window pops up on the screen and suddenly they are seeing the world passing by at high speed. 

They watch in silence for a time, each absorbing this new point of view of their planet until Bucky notices something in the distance, “There’s the comm Tower.”

Steve lifts his head off Bucky’s shoulder and he can’t help but want to push his head right back down, but Steve is focused intently on the screen, “Now we see if this plan works.”

In the video, the world streams by uninterrupted, while in the console code starts scrolling by at an unreadable speed. Howlie gives a play by play, “Red Wing protocol initiated…. socket connection open … connection accepted, pinging server….server connection secure.”

Suddenly the sound of a phone ringing fills the room. After a few rings, it stops and a new window opens up, the face of a woman, one brow arched but otherwise expressionless takes up half the screen. The other half is taken up by her bright red hair. Steve practically yells into Bucky’s ear, “Nat!”

Nat gestures with her chin at the camera, her huge digital eyes boring into him, “Hello, Mountain Man.” Bucky cringes.  _ Great, now we have video. _

 

That evening is Luis’ last on the mountain before Winter. Over dinner he opines on the state of the world he’ll be re-entering. “Wish I could stay bro, I really do. But I guess I don’t gotta worry so much about you now that Stevie’s here.” He holds out his fist to Steve, “Promise me you’ll take care of our Mountain Man here.”

Bucky groans at the nickname that caught on like wildfire. Steve is sitting next to him and pushes into his shoulder as he reaches over the table to bump Luis’ knuckles with his own. “I promise.”

He sounds so solemn that Bucky looks disbelievingly at both of them, “I’m sitting right here, guys. And I’ve gotten by fine so far.” There is no small measure of sarcasm in his voice but Luis still nods at him with a little placating smile like he’s some kid. He points his metal finger at Luis, “That’s it. See if I can my salsa verde for you next year.”

Luis immediately looks repentant, “No no no no don’t say that man, you have any idea how popular that shit is out there?” He gestures to the windows encompassing all the people out in the world that Bucky will hopefully never have to meet. “It’s more valuable than fuel bro! Do have any idea how hard it is to make crater taters not taste like wet socks? It’s  _ hard _ ! but your salsa is like a milagro delivered by none other than Santo Jaime de la Montaña! Chef extraordinario de la época post Lluvia Negra! I mean seriously bro, you could write your own cookbook.”

Bucky smugly arches an eyebrow. Sounds about right, his salsa is pretty good. He’s already daydreaming about expanding his greenhouse to accommodate some extra seedlings when Steve bumps his shoulder, “Jaime?”

_ James.  _ He hears the name in a woman’s voice, a voice he hasn’t heard for decades. He immediately pushes any memories away. He tries to give a nonchalant smile but it comes out weak, lopsided and puts a crease of worry into Steve’s brow.  _ That’s not right, cannot have that.  _ “Used to be my name. Before…” he can’t seem to finish it so he just holds up his metal arm. Fear that Steve will ask more gets his voice caught in his throat, then shame that he cannot reciprocate Steve sharing his past with him forces him to look down at his plate, hiding behind his curtain of hair.  _ Coward. _

“Bucky was also your name, amigo, don’t forget.” 

Luis shoves something under his nose. He’s about to flick his hand away in annoyance when he gets a whiff of rich, dark, “Chocolate?” He looks up, eyes wide with sheer amazement, “Where did you get that?”

Steve is practically vibrating next to him, visibly restraining himself from reaching out towards the little square in front of Bucky and taking it for himself. “I haven’t seen chocolate in years.” 

Luis takes mercy on him and tosses him his own square. “And you’re probably not going to see it again for awhile big guy, so savour it.”  He holds out his own piece in the air between them, “I’d like to propose a toast.” Bucky and Steve hold out their pieces before them as Luis continues. “Between the UN and Hydranamics, strange things are afoot at the Circle K, my dudes, but come hell or high water we’re going to solve this mystery.” Bucky side eyes Steve who shrugs - he doesn’t get the reference either, but it’s nothing new. Luis either ignores them or doesn’t notice their confusion, “To the Truth.”

It seems ridiculous, holding out pieces of chocolate like kids swearing allegiance to their Treehouse club or something, but Bucky can’t help but feel that something important was happening. A shiver runs down his spine as he taps his piece against the others and he and Steve declare simultaneously, “The Truth.”

They spend the next few minutes taking as tiny bites as they can out of their little dark squares of pure bliss, moaning with such pleasure that Bucky can’t help the embarrassed flush that rises on his cheeks. If the deep crimson of Steve’s blush is anything to go by, the guy is getting pretty affected himself, and ain’t that a sight! Luis has no shame and recites an  _ Oh my gawd _ with every bite like it’s a prayer.

The sun has long since set, but Luis wants to get a move on, preferring to travel when there are fewer people to run into. He’ll be heading East to El Tajin to see his friend Scott at Drone Command. On the way, he promises to keep his eyes peeled for anything weird and to keep in contact as much as possible. Steve offers his hand to the trader but Luis just uses it to pull him down into a hug. 

When it’s his turn Bucky finds himself clinging a little harder a little longer, “Take care of yourself, Luis.”

“You too, brother.” Luis is being crushed into Bucky’s flannel shirt but he doesn’t complain, “One eye on the Sky, Buck.”

Bucky and Steve stand side by side, arms pressed together from shoulder to wrist, as the taillights of Luis’ camper van disappear down the mountain road, the strains of blaring music fading with the light.   

 

  
  



	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve, sitting in a tree...

 

 

_ Yeah, I was tracking it too …. Confirmed. I have never seen anything naturally move at that angle …. I do NOT sound like a drill sergeant, if that were true I’d be yelling and would probably blow the speakers….Nothing wrong with a little professionalism….Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Widow!.... I will, I’ll say something, I promise….Yes, please, let’s get back to work. Do you have a size estimation? I think some excess brightness was conflating my results…. _

 

Bucky’s eyelids feel heavy and he blinks a few times before finding himself staring at the same pine boards on his ceiling that’s he’s woken up to for the past five years. A muffled voice comes from downstairs.  _ Steve. _ He looks over at his alarm clock, the cracked screen warping the 7, just as it starts ringing. He reaches over and turns it off, foregoing switching over to the radio. He freezes, listening for any noise from downstairs as if he’s afraid to be discovered - silence.  _ Ridiculous, Barnes, get your ass in gear. _ He’s less stiff than he thought he would be after the adventure capturing Red Wing and the visit from Luis which is always a bit intense. As he stands in front of his bedroom window, looking out over the valley and warming up his joints, Steve’s deep voice starts up again, reverberating through the cabin as though coming from the walls themselves.

 

_ No, I’m here….Acknowledged. OK, I want continuous tracking on the Mare Crisium, they seem to be coming and going on that side….If I’m being bossy it’s because I’m the boss….I have metaphorical grey hair with your name on it, I swear…. _

 

Bucky smiles to himself.  _ What a dork. _ He may tease Steve, but secretly he loves listening to him talk to his NEO Network. The air of confidence, decisiveness, absolute trust in the abilities of his friends - a natural born leader. He dresses quickly, pulling a thick fleece over his long-sleeve shirt. On his way out of the bathroom, he catches his reflection in the mirror: long dark hair flops over his left eye and he pushes it back, gathering his hair at the nape of his neck. He runs his fingers through his beard, it’s starting to get a bit bushy, a few streaks of white curling through the reddish brown. He tries to remember when he started growing it but it’s all a bit fuzzy, must have been before he came to the Mountain. His eyes lock on his reflection, light blue like chips of ice, almost grey, with a fleck of green in one corner.  _ A family trait…. _ He lets his hair go and it covers his view enough to let him walk away from the mirror and concentrate on what has to be done that day.

 

Steve is sitting on the floor in front of the sofa talking to Natasha through the secure video link Howlie had set up. He jumps to his feet as soon as Bucky peeks his head around the corner, “Morning! Let me get the coffee on.”

Bucky looks at him skeptically and is about to insist that he can take care of it when Natasha’s voice comes booming through the speakers, “Mountain Man! Come here, I need your advice on some new kit we’ve acquired.”

Her tone of voice brooks no arguments, so Bucky shrugs and moves towards the spot that Steve just vacated. Steve’s large hand covers his shoulder as he passes and Bucky can’t help but push his hair behind his ear and answer his sunshine smile with a grin of his own. “Thanks, Ste...Cap. It’s in the pantry, second shelf.” Bucky cringes at the use of the monikers, but better safe than disappeared by UN special black ops agents.

Steve nods and  _ winks _ at him, “Sure thing, Mountain Man, leave it to me.” And with that, he disappears into the kitchen.

Bucky gulps. He’s pretty sure he’s going to be replaying that look, deep voice that just reaches right into his chest included, over and over in his head all day.  _ Dammit. _ He sits on the floor and gets comfortable, angling the screen down a bit so the camera doesn’t just get upwards from his nose. Natasha has a single brow arched, looking like a cat that just caught the canary.  _ Dammit! _ Bucky clears his throat again and absolutely does not glance towards the kitchen. “What have you got, Widow.”

She bites her lip, chewing on her words no doubt, but mercifully just gets to the point. Bucky doesn’t know if he can take her penchant for double entendres this soon after waking up. “We have acquired an infrared telescope but unfortunately none of us here have much experience in the field.”

A voice from offscreen yells from what is probably across the room, “Speak for yourself, babe!”

Natasha looks off to the side and behind her screen and states with infinite patience, “Grade school field trips do not count, Hawkboy.”  

As she returns her attention back to Bucky indignant posturing comes from her companion, “Don’t believe her, Mountain Man, and it’s Hawkeye.”

“As I was saying, we have an infrared capability, however, though Winter is upon us and ambient temperature hardly seems a problem, we cannot keep up with the noise in the readings.”

Bucky nods, “Well, off the top of my head, depending on what you want to look at, I can think of at least three things you should be doing. How easily can you get your hands on some liquid nitrogen?”

It’s familiar territory and surprisingly refreshing to talk about it to an actual person and not just through the FreeNet amateur forums. As Bucky starts to explain the cooling procedure, Steve returns with a cup of coffee, placing it carefully in Bucky’s hand before settling back onto the couch. Bucky wriggles a bit as the cushions behind him dip under Steve’s weight but soon gets comfy again. He sips his coffee and continues chatting with Nat, going on to explain about interferometry. Bucky’s cup has been long dry by the time they make a plan for Bucky to help enhance their adaptive optics system and adapt it to the new equipment. 

Nat’s smile is sudden and a little alarming, “Well, it’s just about time to check on tonight’s setup, so I will let you go and get on with your day.” She gestures with her chin towards Bucky’s shoulder, “Looks like sleeping beauty finally gave in.”

Bucky twists his head around and comes face to face with Steve, head pillowed on a cushion pushed up against Bucky’s back. Calm and peaceful in sleep, cheeks rosy in the warm room, he looks almost boyish. The urge to reach out and smooth his ruffled golden hair is almost overwhelming.

“Give him a goodnight kiss for me.” 

Bucky starts at Nat’s voice, he had completely forgotten that she was there. When he turns back to the screen he sees that she’s signed off already. He turns off their connection and puts it on standby. The window showing Red Wing’s view is already crossing over the Gulf of California leaving the coast of Isla Tiburon.  _ Shark Island _ . Bucky watches as the coastal settlement comes into view. People carry things back and forth between buildings, going about their busy day. A small group is fortifying a roof against the coming weight of the snows. No one seems to acknowledge Red Wing and within a few minutes, the drone leaves them behind.

Bucky dims the screen and slowly gets to his feet, partly to not wake Steve but mostly because he is ridiculously stiff from sitting so long on the floor. He stokes the fire and adds another log to keep it going. A wool blanket is thrown over one of the chairs so he grabs it and gives it a bit of a shake before gently placing it over Steve’s stretched out form. The big lug takes up the entire length of the sofa and his knees are still bent and sticking out blocking Bucky’s escape. The edges of the blanket have become soft with time and use so he tucks them in tight around Steve’s shoulders. As he pulls it up to his chin, Steve’s eyes snap open.

Bucky startles and flinches, letting out an embarrassing squeak. He scowls down at Steve and doubles down on tucking in the blanket tightly. “Go back to sleep, pal, even superheroes need to rest sometimes.” He considers stapling the blanket to the cushions to get him to stay in place.

“You gonna be here when I wake up, Buck?” Steve’s brow creases as though he is worried that Bucky’s going to just be gone. He wonders if Steve had been dreaming and hasn’t actually fully woken up.

He lets his hand drop on Steve’s arm and tries to sound comforting, “Where am I going to go, huh?”    

A goofy grin spreads across his face and his eyes blink closed once more. Bucky stays where he is for a few more moments, bent over and hand resting on Steve’s side until his breaths become even and measured once more. Reluctantly, he leaves the warmth of the room, grabs some supplies from the kitchen and heads out into the crisp cool morning to start his rounds.    

 

The Mountain residents fall into a comfortable routine as Winter inevitably descends. The snows finally fall and stick around this time, blanketing the mountain in frozen white fluff. Bucky would find it beautiful if it didn’t mean warming the truck up for ten minutes before setting out in the morning and having to change his boots for slippers every time he enters a building. An array of slip-ons, clogs and fuzzy bunny slippers (a Christmas present from Luis two years ago) are left in each building. There are a few pairs large enough for Steve, who is particularly forgetful when it comes to taking off his boots, and easily excited about the copious amounts of snow, seemingly impervious to the accompanying freezing temperatures. How can Bucky be irritated when that smile and look of wonder is directed at him.  _ Isn’t this world amazing, Buck? _ Looking into those star-like eyes Bucky has to begrudgingly agree. 

The mountain residents get on with the planned observing regime set by Central, all the while continuing the covert observations of Hydranamic activity on Earth and Luna. The frequency of evacuations from natural disasters like floods and wildfires increases on the radio news feed while no evidence is observed either through Red Wing’s video feed of the peninsula or through the FreeNet forums. The evidence of other people besides themselves, however, has been declining from both. Bucky had tasked Morita with mapping the locations of known settlements and the bot had taken artistic license in its execution. Within a night, a massive map of the world (AuthaGraph projection because of course the bots went through every projection type to find their favourite) was laid out in thinly cut strips of electrical tape over an entire wall in the big telescope’s monitoring room. The location of every asteroid hit and the surrounding no-go zone was meticulously marked. Steve had donated a handful of oil pastels for colour coding marked locations on the wall: green for NEO network affiliates (more than Bucky first knew about, that’s for sure), violet for settlements and small pockets of people out in the “wild” (fewer than the impression Bucky got when he’d travelled after the War), and red for the Central Cities (one or two megacities per Sector). 

As the weeks went on, the violet marks started to disappear. More than a few settlements on the peninsula became abandoned as if the residents had just upped and left in the middle of the night. They caught a few groups of people trekking across the land, even though it was winter and arguably the most difficult time to travel. Everyone seemed to be abandoning their homes, heading towards Central in old Mexico City. Even on the forums, people seemed scared. Outpost stores were being shut down and centralized. What if they were cut off from supply lines by a wildfire? What if everything they had built was washed away in a flash flood or the radioactive flu that was all over the news turned up in their village? Better to move to Central and maybe even on to Luna. 

Through the fear, a voice of dissent started to rise. At first, it became louder on the forums, opposition, and anger at what was perceived as UN propaganda and fear mongering. Then it started to manifest in actions. Natasha told them of a group of friends who had been arrested by UN forces for protesting the closing of an outpost and rail line to the city. She was stone-faced, stoic to a fault according to Steve, as she told them that they had shown no violence, but had been taken away weeks ago without anyone having heard from them since. The news feeds reported “terrorist” attacks and encouraged the conscientious citizen to keep an eye out and report any suspicious activity. 

 

Though ever present in their undercover work, the deteriorating situation on the ground did not yet touch the daily lives on the Mountain. Bucky was trapped in a sweet Hell brought on entirely by himself and that golden bastard, Steve Rogers. 

Ever since they had set up communications with Nat, Steve had essentially moved into the Red Cabin. In the wee hours of the morning, after he was done with his observing run, he would come back and settle into the living room, stoking the fire and start making notes on what Red Wing could see of the surrounding area while waiting for the drone to get in range for comms. By the time Bucky would get downstairs, coffee would be made and Steve would have a cup ready for him and a spot cleared on the sofa so he could join him. Sometimes the aroma of freshly baked bread would accompany the smell of the brewing coffee. Sometimes an egg and toast or bowl of oatmeal would be waiting for him along with the strong brew. On the mornings when Steve and Nat were deep in discussion Bucky would make the breakfast. He learned that Steve likes his eggs over easy, the runnier the better. He likes his toast fried in a bit of oil and crunchy as hell, seeming to rejoice in eating as noisily as possible. Marmalade is preferred over jam and as much sugar in his coffee as it can take before being able to stand your spoon in it. Bucky always grumbled when he had to make the breakfast but the glee in Steve’s face said he didn’t believe it one bit, and it was true: Bucky  _ loves _ to make things for Steve. Be it preparing his favourite food, getting the telescopes ready for the planned observing, or just making sure there’s enough busy work for Steve to do in his downtime to keep him out of trouble.

Boy, could that man get in trouble when left to his own devices for too long. Climbing ice-covered branches to get a view of the valley for a piece he’s working on then inevitably slipping as the sun starts to melt it and slicing his head open as he falls through the branches. Convincing himself that riding a snowmobile was like riding a motorcycle and racing Gabe up the mountain only to break a tread. Twice. Convincing Howlie that he should be allowed to organize the research papers and spending a week cleaning up the mess when his carefully piled floor to ceiling stacks, ordered by relevance to Steve’s interest and Dum-Dum’s formidable reach, tumble like dominoes. Climbing the outside of the Tower like it was a ladder so he could stand at the peak, looking out in all directions like some sort of sentinel. Sure he hasn’t fallen  _ yet _ , but it certainly did nothing to help Bucky’s nerves. 

So, Bucky set him his very own set of daily chores: help Falsworth tend the chickens, check the greenhouse, make sure the wood pile is stocked, clear the drive and lots of snow, and make note of any repairs for Bucky to complete during the day with the very explicit caveat of not attempting to do any repairs himself (duct tape does  _ not _ solve all problems). Naturally, Steve added his own tasks to his list. The little papers left around for Bucky to find resumed, sometimes with a comic if he was feeling playful, and carefully rendered landscapes or people that Bucky didn’t recognize if he was feeling nostalgic. They were all beautiful and Bucky kept every single one, even as he groused that they would run out of paper before Luis could re-supply in the Spring. Steve just beamed with pleasure when he would walk by one of his drawings that Bucky had hung up on the wall. He was just about out of frames that he could pillage from storage and would have to start making his own soon.

Within the first week of winter, it was silently but mutually understood that Steve would now be sleeping in the Red Cabin. The record player, his art supplies and anything else he owned slowly started filling up the corners over a few days. There was another smaller bedroom that Bucky had offered to clear out for him, but Steve seemed quite content in the living room. The physical work seemed to be enough to let Steve get at least 5 or 6 hours of sleep during the day and Bucky secretly relished coming back to the cabin and finding him stretched out on the sofa, limbs askew and lightly snoring without a care in the world. Bucky would start making something for dinner and Steve would shuffle in next to him, sleepily rub his eyes and rest his forehead on Bucky’s shoulder. It was difficult to move around with a 250-pound golden retriever leaning on him so he would ply him with a coffee or strong cup of tea and sit him at the table. Steve would pick out an album to play and they would talk over eating. Most of the time it was speculation about Hydranamic activity and whatever news they had learned, but eventually, they would start talking about music or projects to make life on the Mountain easier. Steve would tease Bucky about being a hermit, the Mountain Man who shakes a stick at the unruly neighbours, but it was always lighthearted and always with a fondness that wouldn’t allow Bucky’s annoyance to get the best of him. Bucky teased him back about his hyperactivity and came up with more ridiculous chores he could perform: paint the buildings in forest murals to make them invisible, build a wall of ice and snow around the Mountain with turrets loaded with snowballs ready to fight the invading UN forces, choreograph a dance for the bots and put on a travelling roadshow. Bucky always had to be careful with his suggestions lest Steve actually go out and do them. He could tell from the glint of mischief in the other man’s eyes that it was always a risk. 

Other things start to change for Bucky too, things on the inside that he can no longer push down into the dark with everything else that happens to him. His immediate physical attraction to Steve starts to turn into a want to see his smile or hear his booming laughter when they are apart during the day. He finds himself taking afternoon breaks, staring out over the valley sparkling white under the setting sun and  _ pining _ . When he finds himself planning the summer garden with Steve’s tastes in mind he knows that he’s gone too far, taken it for granted that Steve would be with him on the Mountain indefinitely. When the realization hits that someday Steve will be done with his work on the Mountain and he will leave to continue his quest for the Truth or vengeance or whatever it is that drives him, Bucky has to sit down hard on the floor in the cupola where he is working and just try to breathe through the panic until he accepts the inevitable. 

The pining doubles after that, even as Bucky tries to avoid Steve. This lasts for all of about two days before Steve leaves a  _ Where’s Bucky? _ comic that Bucky just can’t help himself but search for his tiny long-haired plaid-shirted Mountain Main character amongst the extremely detailed landscape of the Mountain. When he finds himself trapped in a labyrinth of filing boxes in one of the telescope storage rooms, he can’t help but laugh. Then he finds the little Steve, hunched on a tree branch with a frown on his face.  _ What a Drama Queen.  _ Bucky gives up on his pathetic and ultimately futile effort to detach himself from Steve. He makes a loaf of apple sourdough as an apology and can’t help his heart pounding wildly in his chest when Steve makes the most obscene noises of pleasure while eating it -  _ Oh my gaaaawd Buck, you are a god amongst men.  _  It’s all Bucky can do to pat him awkwardly on the shoulder and leave the room before he embarrasses himself.

 

The worst part about pining after Steve is that Howlie  _ knows _ .

_ “Have you seen Steeve this morning, Buck-ee? I did not know that human musculature could be so impressive.” _

 

_ “Dum-Dum, could you please give these readings to Mr. Barnes. No, I know Buck-ee is standing right behind me, I mean the other Mr. Barnes.” _

 

_ “Buck-ee, you are going to fall right off this mountain if you gaze any further into the distance. Your grey cells must be dying off because Steeve is right over there.” _

 

The bot seemed to delight in making Bucky turn various shades of red, “Get the infrared meter, Morita, I believe Buck-ee is about to catch fire.”

Bucky viciously turns the pages on the spectrograph manual, “Can we please concentrate, we have to troubleshoot this before the observing run tonight.” When he is met with quiet, too quiet, he looks up to find Howlie standing before him, single cursor blinking on their face. Expecting to be teased further, Bucky huffs, hands on hips, “What?”

Howlie hesitates.  _ This can’t be good.  _ “Buck-ee I have something to tell you but I do not want you to be alarmed. Just be confident that everything is alright and the Mountain is safe.”

Bucky’s veins freeze with absolute dread. He’s pretty sure his cheeks, red with embarrassment, have drained of all colour. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he can trust Howlie completely.

“I have been analysing Red Wing’s programming for weeks now and have discovered an anomaly in one of the reporting protocols. At first, I thought it was a new security override from Central, but upon further inspection, it seems as though it is, in fact, part of the original firmware. Central has not updated their drone onboard systems in over two years, but this particular protocol continues to be periodically updated without any changes to the log file. This should not be possible Buck-ee.”

Bucky frowns at the bot, “Those drones were built over 20 years ago. What are you saying, Howlie?” 

“I am saying that someone has been using Red Wing’s surveillance for their own purposes, potentially since it was first deployed, and taking great pains to hide the activity from Central.”

_ Another spy. _ Bucky feels himself sway backwards with the revelation, catching himself on Howlie’s outstretched arm before falling over completely. “Do you think they know we’ve tampered with Red Wing ourselves?”

“It is unlikely they could detect my modifications to the code. In order to stay hidden, this particular reporting protocol has extremely limited systems access. However, the main goal is to capture the video feed, so it is possible that if there is someone still watching, they would have seen the day we captured Red Wing.”

They could not risk accessing Red Wings memory so had never watched the footage from their drone capture during the storm. “It’s possible that it didn’t look as authentic as we hoped and it may raise suspicions if someone is watching closely.”

“Buck-ee, whoever it is is not with Central and comes from a time before Unification. The drones were very early Hydranamic tech when many parts were outsourced to other companies. I am tracking down the information and will narrow down who is receiving the transmissions if I can.”

Bucky looks at the manual he had been reading - it was going to have to wait, “I better tell Steve.” As he heads towards the door he half expects another teasing quip from Howlie.

“Buck-ee, I have analysed all possible outcomes. I do not believe that if this person or entity meant us or anyone harm that they would have waited so long.”

Bucky looked back and nodded, giving a half-smile to the bot, “They may still be waiting.”

 

Bucky finds Steve already up and filling a large terracotta pot with more soil to serve as a heat sink for the greenhouse. When he sees Bucky trekking through the snow towards him his whole face opens in welcome as he beams through the glass. Bucky swallows, struck again at how unbelievable this man before him is. He considers for a moment not to tell Steve about Howlie’s discovery, just to continue as they usually do, but even as the thought occurs to him he dismisses it. He cannot keep this to himself and he cannot lie to Steve.

As he opens the door to the greenhouse Steve points directly at his chest, “I owe you dinner.”

Whatever Bucky was going to say it is completely derailed. He crosses his arms over his chest and smiles up at the big lug, “Finally.”

Steve slaps a hand over his heart and looks up, questioning the ceiling, “Finally, he says. Finally. Like I haven’t been planning this for weeks.”

Bucky raises a brow, intrigued, and Steve looks back at him beaming once again. “Weeks, eh? I’m pretty hungry, this better be quite some feast.”

Steve bites his lip and smirks at him. Bucky plays his own words back and immediately flushes at the possible double entendre. He looks down to hide his own embarrassed grin. “Uh, Steve?” He looks back up, pushing his hair behind his ears and finds Steve has moved closer to him.

“Yeah, Buck?” 

Bucky catches the crisp scent of soap, clear winter air, pine and  _ Steve _ who is standing close enough now that Bucky has to tilt his head up to look at him.  _ Get it out now, Barnes, don’t get distracted!  _ “Howlie found something. Something about Red Wing that I gotta tell you.” He pushes back the panic that threatens to overwhelm him when the thought of someone invading the Mountain takes over. He remembers Howlie’s assurances and hangs on with a mental grip.

Steve looks down at him, concern all over his face, and inches closer. He rubs a comforting hand up and down Bucky’s arm and he can feel himself calming. “What is it, Buck?”

Bucky takes a deep breath, “Someone has been using Red Wing to watch, hiding it from Central just like us, but for longer.”

Steve’s frown deepens and Bucky feels a stab of guilt for putting it there in the first place, “How much longer?”

Bucky shakes his head, “Unknown, but probably from the very beginning, before Unification, before Schmidt took over the UN. Possibly since the time of the Alpha’s falling.”

Bucky searches Steve’s eyes as the other man contemplates. The frown eases up into a neutral expression which is opposite enough from what Bucky was expecting as a reaction that he finds himself wondering what the hell is going on. Eventually, Steve says something, “Hm.”

Steve continues rubbing Bucky’s arm, but Bucky is more than a bit surprised by the lack of reaction, “Hm? That’s all? Someone could be spying on us this whole time, someone besides the obvious, and we have no idea who or their intentions and it doesn’t worry you?”

Steve gives a lopsided grin, “I take it Howlie is figuring out the who right now.” When Bucky nods his agreement his grin breaks out into a smile, “Then there’s nothing we can do about it tonight.” He takes Bucky by the shoulders, spins him around and gently pushes him towards the door, “Why don’t you wash up and I’ll meet you in the dining room say in half an hour, sound good?”

Bucky can’t help but fall under the influence of Steve’s confidence that everything was alright.  _ He and Howlie are conspiring against me, I swear. _ He turns back around even as he moves through the doorway, “Fine, you get your way this time Rogers.”      

Steve’s answering grin tells him that he knows.

 

The stream of warm water over his skin feels nothing less than glorious after tensions of the day and Bucky finds himself just enjoying the feeling and letting his mind drift. Images of the last time he had let himself feel something for someone else, be with someone else, flash before him. Under a stream of water just like he is now but this one in an old army barracks, sneaking some time with one of his teammates who he’d grown close to, what was his name? An American like him, recruited from one of the other survivor camps and moved around to other Sectors with Bucky and their team. Two strong arms pulling Bucky closer under the water - he hadn’t had to get mods as Bucky had, hadn’t lost parts of himself along with his family during the early days of the Hard Rain.  _ Gabe. _ Yeah, Gabe, good with languages, smile to die for….

The sounds of gunfire and someone screaming his name take over and Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and digs the heels of his palms in until they fade away.  _ I am not going back there.  _ He turns his face up into the stream of water and casts his mind back further, but there is nothing but a jumble of moments: soft hair tickling his nose as he kisses behind an ear, hands running down over his chest, stomach, hips, smooth and lithe from youth, no scars, nothing missing. A vague image of a young man with dark hair, short along the sides and unruly on top to match his laughing gaze and cocky smile, pale skin shaved smooth with his father’s straight razor, one of the only things he’d saved from home before the evacuation, dimple in his chin accentuated with a pouting lower lip, devastating to all to come in contact, or so he’d liked to think…

Bucky’s eyes snap open when he realizes that the young man in his mind was him. He quickly shuts off the water and grabs for his towel, hastily drying off his body and ignoring his softening erection. He swipes at the steam covered mirror until he can see himself. Long dark hair plastered over half his face, he pulls it back one-handed and looks for the man in his mind. The eyes look similar but harder and lines across his forehead, the crease in his brow look wrong. He drops his hair and pulls at his scraggly beard, runs his fingers over his mouth that is almost entirely overrun by his moustache. He quickly puts on his prosthetic and starts digging in the drawer for a comb and hair tie. He ties off a quick bun at the base of his neck then digs back into the drawer for the hair scissors. Huge chunks of hair fall into the sink as he methodically attacks the beard he’d been sporting since he could remember arriving. The stubble left behind is patchy but the face from his memory is starting to emerge. More lines around the eyes, skin freckled from years of exposure, but he looks ... familiar. 

He goes to his bedroom closet and digs out an old duffel bag, rummaging around inside until his fingers close around a familiar shape. He returns to the mirror and sets the straight razor on the edge as he lathers up the bar of soap and covers his stubble with the creamy bubbles. As he unfolds the razor the sweet smell of pipe tobacco comes back to him, laced between memories of Brooklyn and sitting around a campfire with other soldiers.  _ My unit.  _ He pushes the memories away again and very carefully gets to work. The second scrape reveals a scar along his jaw. He continues before he can think too hard on it, half expecting that every swipe will unearth another memory, but nothing else is revealed except how pale his skin has become. He is particularly careful with the divot in his chin, after getting a few nicks around his neck and jaw. After wiping away any lingering foam with his damp towel he just stares into the mirror. A bit reddened from the shave, but otherwise smooth, an older version of the cocky self-assured man he used to be.

Steve’s booming yell shakes him from his reverie, “Buck! You OK up there? Dinner’s on the table and it ain’t a black tie event!”

Bucky mouth lifts up in one corner and he rolls his eyes.  _ Patience Rogers.  _ “I’m coming, hold your horses!” He looks one last time at his reflection before going to get dressed, unable to keep down the smile of anticipation, “Devastating, Barnes.”

 

_ He’s staring. Now you’ve done it, you’ve broken him. _ Bucky had walked right into the kitchen before the sudden wave of self-consciousness could stop him. To say Steve had been surprised would have been a massive understatement. The golden lug had stood frozen, eyes comically wide and mouth parted. He starts to move, reaching out, his fingers grazing Bucky’s cheek as if by their own accord. When his thumb traces the divot in his chin Bucky suddenly panics and his whole body flinches as if to run away, that somehow he has shown too much before he was ready. Steve yanks back his arm and straightens his shoulders, visibly collecting himself, “You shaved.”

Bucky grins at his obvious restraint, Steve always seems to know what to do, instantly feeling back at ease. His skin tingles but he keeps his voice teasing, “You noticed.” He laughs at Steve’s withering look and feels light enough inside that he easily takes Steve’s joking shove, moving away and then swaying back, leaning in closer as though falling into a well of gravity. Steve takes him into his arms as though catching him, heavy arms over Bucky’s shoulders and face buried into his neck. Bucky’s arms continue their fall, wrapping around Steve’s waist and pulling him in tighter. Their unexpected collision sends them on a slow spin, but they manage to coordinate their feet enough to avoid falling over completely. Bucky can feel Steve running his cheek along his and his breathy voice is suddenly in his ear, “You don’t have to hide from me.”

A tremble moves up through Bucky’s body and Steve’s arms tighten around him, one hand smoothing up and down his back. Bucky squeezes his eyes shut and all at once remembers the feeling the last time he had been soothed like this. Contact. Warmth and … and …

Steve starts to draw back but his arms keep their hold around Bucky’s shoulders. Bucky looks up as Steve gently bumps their noses and presses their foreheads together. Their breaths mingle as Steve whispers, “Hey, Bucky, you’re all right, I’ve got you.”

Bucky hadn’t even realized when his trembling had worsened, but with every stroke along his spine, the heaving in his chest slows. Steve’s calming voice slows his own shaky breathing until he can finally form words, “I think I’ve ruined your reputation as an aloof intellectual.”

Steve throws back his head and lets out a bark of laughter. He bows backwards with his mirth, dragging Bucky forward and completely throwing them off balance. Steve lands hard on his ass which only makes him laugh harder. Bucky’s momentum lays them out on the floor and he rolls into Steve’s side as the big mook won’t let him fall on the floor and keeps his massive arms around him. Not that Bucky’s complaining. He wiggles around to his side and props his head up on an elbow as he patiently waits until Steve’s giggles die out. Steve tries to fix Bucky with a serious glare that is completely undermined by the tear of laughter gliding down his cheek, ”Don’t tell Nat. She’ll be so happy.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow, “Tell her what? That you laugh like a burro?”

Steve just continues to look at him and twists his body so that they are facing each other. He shakes his head, “No,” he pulls the arm under Bucky, moving him closer, “This.”

Bucky actually feels like the only thing keeping him from falling through the floor or floating away is Steve’s hand holding his jaw, his lips pinning in him place. Bucky covers Steve’s hand in his own and presses as he returns the kiss - a command, a plea.  _ Stay _ . 

  
  
  


  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The World ain’t gonna save itself, Steve.
> 
> \--> Check out amazing Kai's artwork in this chapter!

 

“The UN has reversed its policy in a historic decision that will see an increase in support to rural areas and an increase in funding for earthbound infrastructure and social services. Central Stores will throw open their doors this weekend so I hope you are hungry, people! First come first serve!”

 

Bucky furrows his brow but doesn’t yet open his eyes. _Why is the radio so close to my head?_

 

“In other news, Johann Schmidt has come out of hiding and has been found living on the Mediterranean beach in the Eastern Sector. His first public statement in almost a decade will be broadcast across Lunar comms this evening. He is expected to denounce his schemes for world domination and espouse the wonders of the bongos. Be sure to tune in and catch his live concert at your nearest Unity Square.”

 

 _What the fuck?_ Bucky fights his bodies wish to throw a pillow over his face and dig deeper into the warmth of the bed. When he finally pries his eyes open he finds he is looking into a sea of shining blue.

 

“Clear skies this morning will turn into more fluffy white stuff falling on your head by the afternoon. Now here’s an oldie but a goodie for your listening pleasure, turn up the volume kids! _I can’t stop the way I feel, things you do don’t seem real….”_

 

Steve Rogers. Glowing and golden Steve Rogers is stretched out under the covers along Bucky’s side, singing in a high pitched voice and beaming down at him. Bucky grabs his pillow and smooshes it into Steve’s face, “I’ll show you white fluffy stuff falling onto your head.”

It completely fails to make the other man quiet down and instead activates his unbridled energy. Strong arms encircle Bucky’s ribs and he’s pulled up on top of Steve like he weighs nothing. One arm holds him in place while the other yanks the pillow away out of Bucky’s hands. He’s still smiling like a madman, his voice impossible higher, “ _He drives me crazy, like no one else.”_ Bucky purses his lips and resigns himself to the serenade. He folds his arms across Steve’s broad chest and settles his chin down to watch the big dope entertain himself. “ _He drives me crazy and I can’t help myself..._ ”

Steve’s long and lithe fingers trail over Bucky’s exposed back and he relaxes further down. It’s in that moment that Bucky realizes that he is completely naked, _they_ are both completely naked, and that even though his brain wants to be annoyed that Steve woke him up the rest of his body is quite happy about this sudden turn of events. He slides a hand out and smooths it over Steve’s clavicle, up and back around to the nape of his neck. He shivers under him and Bucky hums with pleasure at the effect. He lets his legs fall open and slide down over either side of Steve’s thighs, adjusting his hips to accommodate their hardening erections. A deep rumble emanates from Steve’s chest as Bucky grinds down, the hands sliding over his back frame his sides and pull, trying to urge Bucky forward but he stubbornly stays where he is. He runs his fingers through the sleep rumpled tufts of Steve’s hair, the slashes of sunshine across the bed making them shine like spun gold. It’s sticking out in all directions and the punk looks _irresistible_. Bucky frowns down at him, “You look adorable first thing in the morning.”

This just makes Steve’s grin impossibly wider. Hands that had been roaming over seemingly every inch of Bucky’s skin are suddenly combing through his dark curtain of hair, catching on tangles as he pushes it back away from his face just to let it fall back in a halo, “And you look sexy as fuck.”

That gets a burst of surprised laughter out of Bucky and he gives up the pretence of morning grumpiness. This time he lets Steve’s hands guide him forward as he falls into a kiss. _The punk has already brushed his goddam teeth!_ Before Bucky can be grossed out or embarrassed by his own morning breath, Steve moans into his mouth short-circuiting his brain. He bends his knees, planting his feet on the bed, thrusting his hips upward. Bucky’s legs are splayed open even more as he’s pushed forward with the movement. He catches his forward momentum with both hands gripping the head of the bed. Steve moans again as he sinks deeper into the mattress under Bucky like he’s drowning under him but completely unwilling to come up for air. Bucky breathes in deeply, feeling himself expanding over Steve as though he could cover him completely, contain him for even just a moment. His mind is clear of thought with the exception of one word, one feeling that repeats with every slide of tongues, every push and pull as their bodies come together: _Stay_.     

 

10:45. Bucky and Steve have been sitting pressed together on the sofa huddled under a wool blanket covered in toast crumbs and sipping coffee for almost two hours. Bucky is looking down at the notes he’d been taking as Red Wing flies over the peninsula, troubled. “Are you sure Nat was going to call today?”

Steve leans forward and updates the comm connection log for the thousandth time, frowning at the lack of activity. “Yes, I am sure.” He leans back into the cushions and grips a hand over Bucky’s knee under the blanket. “This is really unlike her.”

Bucky frowns down at his notes again, “Another five enclaves from the mainland coast have disappeared, settlements completely abandoned.”

Steve looks over at him questioningly, brow creased with worry, “Since yesterday?”

Bucky nods, grim but unwilling to think too hard on the implications. He closes the notebook and tosses it onto the table next to the laptop. “I had better go check on the bots.” He reluctantly unfolds the blanket from his lap, shaking out the crumbs, and settles it around Steve instead. He gently grips his warm hand around the back of Steve’s neck and urges those bright star-like eyes to look at him, “There’s a million reasons why Nat can’t call right now and all of them are related to Barton being a human disaster.” That gets a laugh from Steve, a weak one but Bucky will count it as a win. He leans in for a kiss that lingers long enough to make Bucky wish that he could take the day off. He pulls back but doesn’t let his hand fall away just yet, “Try to get some rest, OK?”

Steve bites his lip but nods his assent, “Yeah, OK, Buck, I’ll try. Wake me up when you get back, alright?”

Bucky grins, already looking forward to that evening, leaning in again to steal a quick kiss, “You got it, pal.”

 

“Hey, Howlie, how’s the seeing?” The clock reads 16:45 and the winter sun was already dropping towards the horizon. Howlie is simultaneously patched into the galactic core monitoring system in front of them and a stand-alone laptop off to the side. A pile of old lab books, papers and folders are neatly stacked beside the laptop. “Dum-Dum forget to clean up some stuff? I can put those away for you, buddy.” Howlie doesn’t answer right away but lays a heavy robotic arm over the stack. Bucky pulls his hand back from where he was reaching out to grab the stack, “Nevermind. Ok, well, I’m going to check in with Luis.”

Howlie remains quiet, which is weird but not unprecedented. One time he’d had to handle a massive data upload to Central after a week-long blackout while calibrating the large telescope’s gyroscope and running diagnostics on all the servers. Bucky had just about pushed that baseline annoyance limit that day trying to get the AI’s attention to help troubleshoot a malfunctioning Dum-Dum, and that was before the large bot’s speaker unit blew. He’s pretty sure Howlie ignored him for longer than was strictly necessary out of petty revenge.

He throws himself into his desk chair and rolls across the floor to the old FreeNet computer. As he waits for the monitor to warm up and go through the rigamarole of his secure connection protocols he lets his mind wander down the mountain and into the Red Cabin where Steve is asleep on the sofa. Well, he should be asleep on the sofa. Probably stretched right out on his back, one arm slung over his head, sleep warm skin with the blanket pushed off and t-shirt riding up those ridiculous abs…

Monochrome text starts scrolling across the screen, yanking Bucky from his reverie and back to the present. He starts looking through Luis’ usual forums, searching for any new posts that may contain any messages left for his network. The Earther Homesteader forum has really dropped in activity over the past month, but he still manages to find a recipe to suit Steve’s sweet tooth charmingly called “crater balls” - he’d have to sub honey-synth for the maple syrup, not exactly easy to get in this part of the world.

He finally finds _ <rosee4life> _ in the post-hard rain lit forum, a single message dated two days ago with the subject line “Do Earthers Dream of Meteoric Sheep?”. He expects to find a poem or haiku or something inside, but all there is is an ASCII image of a unicorn and a lone jpeg file. There are no comments. Bucky downloads the image and spends a few more minutes checking the other forums but there is no sign of any of the NEO network. He disconnects the machine and calls out behind him, “Howlie, I got a Luis special here waiting for you.”

Howlie disconnects from his own work and picks up the stack of notes. On silent treads he glides over to Bucky, dumping the stack in front of him and holding out his extension port for the connector patch. “Buck-ee, after you read Luis’ message I have something to show you.”

Bucky has never heard Howlie sound so monotonically _robotic_ before, it was … disconcerting. “Ok.” Unsure of what else to say he connects the USB patch, waits for Howlie to signal they are finished and turns back to the screen. Howlie pulls up beside him to wait, which also isn’t unprecedented but nevertheless triggers a sense of foreboding. Luis’ message starts off in the usual way:

 

> *** _Yo yo yo my Earthbound brothers and sisters! News on the ground is slower than ever, and I ain’t just referring to the lack of trans-continental maglevs. The stores are fewer and far between and so are we. Our numbers are dwindling amigos and I am surely certain that it’s not just from people up and moving to the Central Cities. You know me, curious as a cat with nine lives and ninety-nine problems, but you know the radiation flu ain’t one. I got Geiger counters out my ass and not a single one has gone above normal, and you know I get around boys and girls. Someone is lying and I think we all know who, just got to find out the why._
> 
> _I may be gone for awhile but don’t anyone worry for me, I’ll be back, I always do, and in time for the Spring rounds so don’t give up on Earth just yet._
> 
> _And you, you old hermit, you still bird watching? Gonna round up my squad and catch me my own game, in case you need to find me._
> 
> _One eye on the sky. ***_

 

Bucky reads the message two more times before destroying it. That sense of foreboding returns, stronger than before. Something is changing, out there, in the world. He swivels around and looks at the map on the wall, now more red than purple. The mountain had never felt so isolated, but instead of reassuring and safe he feels woefully unprepared.

“Ah-hem.”

Howlie has the most well-enunciated throat clearing of anyone Bucky has ever known. He swivels around again and looks up at his friend, “I think I know where Luis is going.”

Howlie lowers themselves until they are face to face, the single cursor blinking in the corner of the bots facial screen the only thing in the present that feels familiar at all. “If you are thinking he has gone to be with Scott at the Watcher Drone Control headquarters then I believe we are on the same output.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth threatens to turn upwards, despite the fear that is starting to leak into his veins, “Page, we’re on the same page.” He rests his prosthetic on the stack of yellowed papers Howlie had brought over, “Speaking of which.” He looks over at Howlie expectantly, even though he gets the feeling that he would rather set it on fire rather than hear whatever truth Howlie is about to lay on him.

“These documents are all the notes of one Dr. Erik Selvig that we possess, with the addition of some observational analysis based on data from the core that Falls-werth has been gathering over the past few months. It is evidence, for Steeve.”

Bucky forces himself to ask the question, “Evidence of what?” He is frozen in place, unable to look away from Howlie’s blinking cursor. He’s pretty sure he does not want to hear the answer.

“Evidence that Schmidt has developed the capability to weaponize the asteroid deterrent system.”

Bucky blinks a few times, trying to process what he’s hearing, “Uhm, what?”

If Howlie could sigh that’s what they’d be doing right now. As it is, the bot lets out a tinny whine, “It took me a long time, too long I fear, to decipher what we were observing at the core. It was the parallax shift that was throwing me off, the assumption that what we were looking at actually was the galactic core and not something simply in the same direction but significantly closer.”

His mind was whirling, positions of distant objects on the celestial sphere weren’t exactly something you could fake. “How much closer?”

“Mere light years. The spectra is unlike anything any of us have ever seen...with the exception of Dr. Selvig, though he too did not possess enough time to determine what it is we are looking at. All I can say is that it is an anomaly of significant energy that is difficult to detect, at least with the equipment we have here, and that it appears that some of that radiation is being directed towards the Moon. Siphoned would be a more appropriate term.”

Bucky leans back in his chair and stares vacantly at Dr. Selvig’s notes. He casts his memory back to when Hydranamics had announced that they’d developed the technology to deflect incoming asteroids, massive space rocks that required either early detection to apply the gravitational intervention required to deflect their path or a previously unheard of amount of energy to deflect or destroy once they got too close to Earth. He looks back up at Howlie catching his own reflection in the bot’s reflective surface - grim realization pulls the corners of his mouth down in a deep frown. “I take it we’re talking about enough of the right kind of energy to control the path of an asteroid on a planet-sized scale. What’re we looking at, kilometer range?”

“Worse, Buck-ee, according to my analysis Hydranamics may possess the means to direct an asteroid with the precision of meters.” Howlie gestures to the stack of evidence, “It is all there.”

Bucky nods, something like acceptance creeping into his gut to roll around with the dread and pretty much guarantee that he won’t be able to sleep for who knows how long. Standing, he grabs the stack and shoves it under an arm, heading towards the door, “I’ll go tell Steve.”

“Buck-ee.” Howlie calls out and Buck stops short, looking over his shoulder but unable to raise his eyes to meet the bots blinking cursor, “Hydranamics has saved the Earth from one threat only to turn it into another. People need to know about this. Steve must bring it to his network, by whatever means necessary.”

Bucky turns back to the door and flings it open, welcoming the blast of frozen Winter air, a ready excuse for his shaking fingers. They’d been hunting Hydranamics for months and now everything seemed to be coming to a head too quickly and he wasn’t ready. But how Bucky felt didn’t matter, never had. “I know.” He pulls the door closed behind him and heads for the truck and back down the mountain.

 

“I can’t get ahold of anyone.”

Bucky finds Steve where he had left him, sitting on the sofa in the little living room of the Red Cabin. The fire was nothing but glowing embers, the blanket discarded to the floor, forgotten, “You’re going to freeze, Stevie.” He sets the stack of the evidence of Hydranamics nefarious deeds on the table next to the laptop and settles down wearily on the sofa next to the big, golden worried-as-hell lug. _His_ big golden lug. _Not for long_ , his traitorous mind points out. He bends over, letting out a groan as his back muscles complain, snatches the corner of the blanket and pulls it up. He flings it around their shoulders as Steve leans back into him. The dark circles around his eyes and the now permanent crease in his brow belie his worry. It hurts Bucky to see it so he tries to lighten the mood, “What, no backtalk about how hot you run these days?” It’s a weak attempt but gets Steve to look at him and smile, small as it is.

“Only hot around you Buck.” He leans in for a kiss and Bucky indulges, selfishly deepening it and prolonging the time until he has to tell Steve what Howlie had discovered, what he knows Steve will do with the information. Steve’s hands are suddenly on the sides of his face, long fingers dipping into his hair. He kisses him almost desperately and Bucky thinks that Steve has already decided what he has to do. They come up for air, foreheads pressed together and hands possessively hanging onto the other. Steve speaks the inevitable into the air between them, “I have to go, Buck. Nat, Sam … something’s not right. Maybe we’ve been found out, maybe they had to go underground quick, but I can’t leave them alone out there. I have to find them.”

Bucky just nods, eyes closed against the determination he knows is burning in Steve’s eyes, hands gripping the collar of Steve’s shirt. For an insane moment, he thinks he can keep Steve here on the mountain with him by sheer force of will, that he could somehow convince the other man to not go out to meet the fight head-on, to stay here where it was safe. _Ha! There’s nowhere on Earth that’s safe now._ He curses his inner voice. He could no sooner stop Steve from going to battle as he could force himself to stop caring about him, not now that he’d opened the floodgates. It was simply too late. He gathers up whatever bravery he’d caught by sheer proximity to the force of nature that is Steve Rogers and forces himself to spit the words out, “There’s more, Stevie. Howlie thinks they’ve figured out what Hydranamics is up to on Luna, and you were right. You guys were right all this time, it ain’t good.” He pulls away reluctantly, Steve’s arms stretching to accommodate, his hands never leaving Buck. He gestures over the stack of papers, “There’s something out there, something not even the bots can figure out, but whatever it is Hydranamics is using it as some sort of power source.” He looks up into Steve’s eyes - the man looks like he’s solving complex calculations in his head and Bucky internally grimaces at the unbidden and completely inappropriate thought _Damn that’s sexy._ He stammers as his cheeks flame, “It, uhm, it looks like they are using it to control NEO trajectories beyond, you know, just deflecting them into the Sun or whatever.”

Steve’s thumbs absently rub into Bucky’s temples, which was doing nothing to abate his inconveniently timed and increasingly explicit thoughts. Steve doesn’t seem to notice, “That would explain the horizontal paths we saw. Nat confirmed they weren’t transport flight paths like we originally assumed.”   

Bucky tries to concentrate but the desperation to hold on was starting to overpower him again. He transfers his grip from where he’s just about to wear a hole in Steve’s shirt to his neck and shoulder, pressing deep into the tense he finds there, “Luis sent a last message, sounds like he’s heading across the Sector to meet up with Scott.”

Steve’s brow furrows, “What do you mean ‘last message’?”

Bucky bites his lip, the worry for his friend and trader that he’d managed to push away rears its ugly head, “He’s going underground, at least for a while, going to try and figure out why some earther settlements have gone missing. Not just moved on to the cities, but vanished.” A vision of Luis’s camper being surrounded by UN security forces, his friend being dragged away to who knows what fate suddenly flashes through his mind. He suddenly looks to Steve, pleading and desperate, “You have to go find him, Steve.”

Steve’s grip on his face tightens and he draws their heads together once more, “I will, Buck.”

Bucky shakes Steve’s shoulders, desperate again but with helplessness compounded on his worry, “I can’t go with you.” His voice sounds weak and reedy to his own ears, the dread that had settled in his gut flaring out into his limbs, “I can’t go back out there.”

Steve’s hands slide down and his arms encircle him, pulling him effortlessly onto his lap, “I know, Buck, I _know_.”

Bucky can’t stop kneading Steve’s shoulders, “You can’t take that damn bike of yours, it’ll never make it down the mountain. I’ll outfit the truck, I’ve got a portable generator you can use to keep the engine warm.” He starts to pull out of Steve’s embrace, mind racing with all the preparations that would need to happen, “I know I’ve got some chains for the tires somewhere. I had the snowmobile, so I never bothered using them. I bet Gabe knows where to find them, those bots are always hiding shit everywhere.”

Steve pulls him back down to him, putting his hands back to his face making Bucky look at him. The sudden manic energy burns away instantly and he melts back into the safe space framed by the big man’s arms. “Bucky,” Steve commands in that bossy tone of his when he is leading the NEO network, “You aren’t going anywhere right now, not away from me.”

His voice taps right into Bucky’s anti-authoritarian instincts, “Is that so, Captain.” He crosses his arms over his chest, straightens his back and looks down at Steve even as he settles further onto his lap, “This road trip rescue mission isn’t going to prep itself.”

Steve beams up at him, disarming him instantly, “There’s only one thing I need to prep for right now, and that’s you, Buck.”

Bucky puffs out a chuckle that blows Steve’s messy fringe out of his eyes, just making the big lug smile wider, “You’re too much Rogers.” Bucky can’t help the sadness from pulling his gaze down and away from Steve’s bright eyes. _Too much to hold onto,_ comes the errant thought but it’s not enough to keep Bucky from trying. He leans in swiftly and catches Steve’s mouth with his own. _I just got you._ He pours all of his fear and longing into the man below him, a star too bright to contain, though it’s not going to stop him from trying, at least for a little while.

 

“I’m gonna come back, baby, I promise.”

Steve and Bucky are out on the balcony, the sight of the plane of the galaxy resplendent across the clear night sky too tempting to ignore. Jeans, sweaters, and boots hastily thrown on over their overheated bodies, they sit wrapped up together under the blanket.

Bucky turns away from the scene above them and noses into the spot behind Steve’s ear where he recently discovered the man has a sensitive spot that produced the most satisfying shivers, “...Did you just call me ‘baby’?”

Steve involuntarily tries to squish his cheek to his shoulder to alleviate the tickles but doesn’t push Bucky away. He pulls him impossibly closer into his side and tries to push his way against Bucky’s neck, laying an open mouth kiss there. “What can I call you, doll?”

Bucky tips his head to the side allowing Steve more access, “I’ll make you a deal. You can call me whatever you want and I won’t complain, but only after you come back.”

Steve pulls back and looks down at him, triumphant and smug, “You got a deal, pumpkin.”

Bucky pinches his ribs with his prosthetic hand and holds him tight as he wriggles, “I said I wouldn’t complain _after_ you come back.”

Steve manhandles him until Buck straddles his legs, as close as Steve can get him. His head is tilted back, framed in Bucky’s long hair shielding them in darkness from the rest of the world. “I like your complaining, sweetpea.”

Bucky nips his nose between his teeth, “I think I preferred ‘pumpkin’.”

Steve stands, keeping Buck to him with powerful arms under his thighs as they head back inside. Bucky holds on with both arms as tight as he can while he has the chance.

  

“I can’t seem to find Howlie or Falsworth. They are hard to keep track of, aren’t they? No wonder you keep calling them squirrels.” Steve sidles up to Bucky as he lowers another crate of jarred spiced pickles from the last harvest into the bed of the truck. “Geez, Buck, that’ll last me years.”

Bucky straightens up and tries to give Steve an unimpressed look but he’s pretty sure it just comes out worried and overbearing, “They’re for trading, Steve, do not eat them all.” He sidesteps the big lug and helps his other big lug Dum-Dum finish attaching the last chain to the tires. When the bot lowers the truck down the heavy stone in Bucky’s gut drops. _That’s it, he’s all ready._ “I rigged a generator so you can keep the engine warm overnight in the colder spots, though as you get further out of the mountains you shouldn’t have a problem overnight. Dernier gave a good shot at getting the radio to work, but it’s iffy at best, and this whole range seems to interfere with the signal anyways, but you get used to the static.” He’s rambling, dammit. _Deep inhale...let it out slowly...now look up and face the man who just happens to be one of a handful of other humans you actually like, oh, and is very likely the love of your life, such as it is you goddamn disaster, Barnes!_ When Bucky finally opens his eyes Steve is looking down at him, a sad smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you, Buck.” His tone is so earnest, it’s all Bucky can do not to close his eyes again, if only to lessen the loss somehow. Steve stands ramrod straight as his eyes dart around the residence buildings, “I put an extra two jugs of water into the greenhouse just in case, but you should probably check on the temperature in the morning and in the afternoon. I’ve been noticing the temperature dropping a bit faster than last year, at least according to Morita’s records.”   

“Steve…”

He gestures with his chin toward the hen house, “And I noticed the little red one has been favouring her left foot.”

“Brigitte.”

“And the one with the white breast feathers, uh, Lola? She’s been pecking at the solar projector, she’ll do some damage to her beak if she keeps going.” His gaze snaps to Bucky as he hooks a thumb in Dum-Dums direction, “Oh! And the Big Guy is going to take care of clearing the lots. It’s not worth the risk to your back, Buck, I know it’s been acting up since we captured Red Wing.”  

Bucky tries again, a bit louder, “Steve.”

Steve shakes his head as if to clear it, his shoulders slumping forward in defeat. When he looks back at Bucky his smile is sheepish, the mid-morning sun glinting off the sheen of water in his eyes, “Sorry, Buck, it’s just this place…” and he spreads one long arm out in a long arc encompassing the residences, the mountain then finally landing on the collar of Bucky’s jacket, his fingers nervously pulling on the material, “...I’ve been constantly moving my whole life. It just started to feel like a home.”  

 _And ain’t that a kicker_. “Stevie…” His voice is a hoarse exhale, no power left in him. He’s collapsing in on himself so he reaches out for the only thing he knows won’t let him fall. Steve catches him in his arms and holds him so tight it’s like he’s being tucked inside. But even as the part of him that knows that Steve is home for him revels in the embrace, the part of him that knows Steve has to return to the World is already pulling back, quaking with fear.

Steve’s voice is shaky with his own tears even as he soothes, “Shhh, shhh, it’s gonna be alright Buck, shhh, quiet now.”

Bucky literally cannot remember crying, not ever. Not when he and his family had to leave their home for the survivor camps after Alpha-1. Not when his parents were lost to the riots and Becca had succumbed to that second wave of radiation flu. Not when he’d lost his arm and been given his new one, the weapon, without no one ever asking. He’d grit his teeth, push the thoughts way down and do what had to be done. But here, in the one good place he’d ever been, losing one of the only good people he’d ever known, not because of a rock falling out of the sky or some other goddamn fucked up tragedy, but because the world needed saving and he’s such a chicken shit that the only thing he can do about it is let Steve go. “I’m sorry, Stevie, I’m sorry. Sorry, Stevie…”

“No, Bucky, no don’t be sorry. I need you to keep doing what you’re doing here, alright sweetheart? We’re going to do this together, call every day, okay Mountain Man? Shhh, Buck shhh....”

Steve was rocking them as Bucky soaked the front of his shirt. His too tight t-shirt. Bucky pulls back and glares at the golden bastard through red, swollen eyes, “Steve, where’s your jacket? You’re going to freeze, I don’t care how hot you run.” Steve starts to raise his hands in defense, smirking down at Bucky, his own watery gaze a mix of fondness and something like awe. Bucky won’t be distracted this time, “And we can’t call every day, Stevie, alright? Even if..” _Oh shit, here come the tears again._ Buck swallows hard and continues in a voice rough with barely contained emotion, “Even if we want to, you got it, punk? We gotta at least make half an effort not to get caught.” He shakes the front of Steve’s shirt to emphasize his point, wiping the tears away from his eyes with the back of his flesh hand.

Steve is looking at him like he’s the whole sky, stars, galaxy and all, and Bucky doesn’t know what to do with it. So, he falls in and pulls him down into a kiss, tries to pour everything he wants to say but can’t into it. Steve takes it all, and when they come up for air Bucky takes a step back because he’s pretty sure that Steve won’t leave until he’s sure Buck is ready.

They walk over to the drivers’ side and Buck holds the door open as Steve slides in. He shuts the door and feels pretty much like he’s cutting off a piece of himself. He can’t help a shaky laugh when Steve holds up his jacket for him to see. The engine starts and Bucky takes half a step back out of habit. Bucky cannot even describe the look on Steve’s face but he can feel it right in his bones like they are being hollowed out. He places a large hand over his even bigger heart as though to keep it in his chest as he pulls away and it's all Bucky can do not to fall to his knees into the ice. He watches as the truck turns the bend in the road to begin the long wind down the mountain, strains his ears until the sound of the tires crunching through the snow fades and Bucky is once again alone.    

 

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“Buck-ee.”

 

“Buck-ee.”

 

“Buck-ee, I will use my NEO proximity alarm if you do not answer me. I have already warned you that it sounds like a foghorn.”

A tall bulky form swims in and out of focus as Bucky blinks snowflakes from his lashes. _When did it start snowing?_ He scrubs his hands over his face expecting to brush more snow from his beard but it met with half a days stubble instead. _What the…_ It hits him all at once, _Steve._ His knees start to buckle but are prevented from falling by something solid and immovable under his arms. He blinks again and sees Howlie taking up his entire view. As he gets his feet under him he looks around and finds himself standing in the car park outside the residences. How long had he been there?

“Buck-ee, I intended to stop Steeve before he left but I am too late. There is something of great importance I need to tell you.”

The bot shoves something in his hands, but Bucky is having trouble focusing again what with trying to swallow back nausea from realizing that Steve is really gone from the mountain. _Gone from me._ He looks down to find Howlie has given him a small device. He turns it around in his fingers but doesn’t recognize it. It looks like something scavenged together from spare parts. “What is this?”

“It is a receiver, a holoprojector and a positioning component powered by one of my nano-fusion batteries.”

Bucky looks up in alarm, “Don’t you need those to function?”

Howlie flicks his arm back and forth, their version of a shrug, “It’s a spare.”

Bucky spins the device again, finds a switch and flicks it on. Immediately a bright blue fan shaped out of light emerges from the device. Bucky examines the image floating a few inches above his hand: long concentric curves flicker around two points of light a short distance away from each other, one steady and one pulsing. “A contour map...is this the mountain?”

“Yes. The pulsing point is this device and the static point is a transmitter Falls-werth assembled. It sits in the monitoring room at the large telescope. Unfortunately, the range is only several hundred kilometers, in theory, however, it is probably best considering the covert nature of your mission.”

Bucky looks up, puzzled, “What do I need this for up here?” He looks at the glowing map in the palm of his hand and imagines Steve making his way down the curves of light. “Is this what you wanted to give Steve?”

“No, it is for you. Buck-ee, I have to tell you something. It took me a personally unacceptable amount of time to find the answer in my own databases, but I believe I recognize the anomalous code in Red Wing’s protocols. I had to access deep storage, the memory banks are so old that some partitions have been corrupted from hard rain radiation. There was something, a fingerprint, in the code, something I had seen before in my own programming.”

Bucky’s mind was whirling with possible implications, “Are you saying you programmed Red Wing? I thought you didn’t have access to your memory banks before Luis found you at the Recycler Centre?”

Bucky could swear that Howlie’s blinking cursor stuttered in its steady pulse. “That was inaccurate of me. You are not the only one who did not want to access memories from that time.”

Bucky reaches out and rests his hand on Howlies side, “If you didn’t recognize your own code, whose code was it?”

“It was Howard Stark. He is still out there, Buck-ee, and you will greatly increase the chances of success in stopping Hydranamics if Stark is involved.”

Skeptical is too mild a term, “Increase it by how much?”

Howlie doesn’t sugarcoat it, “You would have a non-zero chance with Stark.”

Bucky shakes his head, shoulders slumping forward, “Stevie’s gone, Howlie, I’m not sure when he’ll get a chance to check in.”

“Buck-ee, Steeve has been gone no more than eleven minutes, but time is running out for you to catch up and go with him.”

Bucky’s jaw falls open, “What?”

Howlie turns him around until he is facing his snowmobile, uncovered and slowly being coated by the light snowfall. Falsworth is securing baggage and equipment to the back as Morita and Gabe bring more things from the direction of the Red Cabin. Dum-Dum and Dernier standby on the side of the car park. “What is going on?”

Howlie pushes him lightly forward towards the snowmobile, “You, Buck-ee, are going to leave the mountain and go save the Planet. There is a non-zero chance you will also save the Moon and likely the Galaxy as well.” Bucky takes a stumbling step forward and Howlie takes the opportunity to push him a little harder, “You are going to use those snow racing skills you think I don’t know about and take the valley, the L-shaped depression on the holo-map, down the mountain and head Steeve off before the road meets the highway.”

Bucky spins around, eyes wide with the onset of panic, “What about Watcher responsibilities? And what if Nat calls in?”

“I have already worked out a program to cover for your absence and I will inform the Black Widow of our plans if she re-establishes contact.”

He takes his helmet from Dernier, feeling a bit dazed, “But what about the bots? Who’s going to fix things when they break? What about _you_?”

Howlie lowers down until their facial screen is level with Bucky’s bewildered own, “I cannot replace you Buck-ee, but we will make due, it is imperative. Steeve needs you now, Buck-ee. You need to take him to Drone Control in Tajín. You are the one who can find a way to make a connection back to me. I need access to Earth Watcher systems to reverse trace Red Wing’s protocols and find Stark. You would be accurate to assume that I do not want you to go, but the safety of this place, this planet, overrides my protective functions of this human with just a handful of grey cells. You can overcome your own protective sub-functions and do this.”

Bucky swallows the lump in his throat and nods his assent. He’s pretty sure if he had any tears left they’d be flowing about now. “Ok, buddy, I won’t let you down.” He gives a last look to the bots who wave and beep at him. His eyes linger on the roof of the Red Cabin peeking through the trees, then track up to the gleaming white of the Tower higher up on the mountain above it.

“Take care of yourself, Buck-ee, and come home.”

Howlie’s voice startles him into action and he straddles the snowmobile, giving a last pat to the bot’s chassis. He attaches the holo-map above the dash, protected by the front screen, and kick starts the motor. He roars off into the trees, leaving the Mountain with his companions for the first time since he’d first come.

 

The trees are an endless blur as he weaves between them, sending waves of freshly fallen snow cascading on either side of his descent. Instinct keeps him on track, with the occasional glance at the smooth blue curves of the holo-map just to make sure. He does the mental math and figures that he can head Steve off before he makes it to the old border fence that separates the Parque Nacional Sierra de San Pedro Martir from the rest of Baja California. He’d never been so thankful for a military grade robotic arm as he increases the speed and lets his prosthetic take the brunt of the torque from the frankly insane driving. Steve would have a fit if he saw him now. _Hypocrite!_ He’d claim, considering the grief Bucky had given him when he caught him racing with Gabe. Bucky keeps the vision of Steve standing in front of him, hands on hips, stern Eyebrows of Disappointment completely ruined by his mouth twitching into a grin. It’s distraction enough to keep the panic at bay. He’s pretty sure he’s already further than he’s been in years. _Stevie, I’m coming._

As the minutes tick by, the forest drenched in a sea of white seems endless and doubts start to edge to the forefront of Bucky’s mind. _What if I am too late?_ He ruthlessly throws them aside and pushes on even harder. He has a close call when he hits the edge of a gully that had been covered by an icy patch and hidden under the recent snowfall. The snowmobile pitches upward and Bucky is practically thrown from the seat during the ensuing freefall. He hangs on to the handles with a death grip, lands and immediately throws a leg out to bank around a boulder that would’ve ended this mission pretty quick if he failed to avoid it. _Holy shit._ Just as Bucky realizes how close he’d come to a serious crash, he immediately forgets it ever happened when he catches sight of the border fence. Checking the holo-map he banks left and follows the border.

He passes the road out of the park before he recognizes it, swings back around and stops by the side. He pulls his helmet off and puffs heavy breaths into the air, looking up and down the road. _Fuck._ Had he missed him?

He’s about to start up the engine again and keep going when he finally realizes that the snow on the road is untouched. He strains his eyes, shielding them from the bright whiteness surrounding him by cupping his hands around his vision. There is no sign of the truck. A burst of panic explodes in his chest and Bucky is suddenly, horrifically sure that Steve has gotten into some kind of accident on the road down. He starts the engine and skids the snowmobile around to face back up the mountain. He’s just about to take off when he sees red flashing through the trees, coming towards him. _Stevie!_ He speeds forward to meet the truck, the need to get to it, to get to Steve, suddenly overwhelming in its intensity. He barely slows before veers off to the side, shutting off the engine as the truck slows and the drivers’ side door slams open.

“Bucky!?” Steve is out of the truck in a flash, elation and worry warring on his face. Bucky eyes him up and down, then the truck. _Not a scratch._ Steve reaches out just as Bucky launches into his arms, “What are you doing here?” He sounds like he can’t decide if he’s happy or confused.

Bucky squeezes hard and shoves his face into the crook of Steve’s neck. For a moment he cannot say anything, just holds on as tight as he can. Steve squeezes back, holding on just as hard. Finally, Bucky feels like he can talk again and he pulls back, “You forgot something.” He steps out of Steve’s arms and starts unlatching the cases the bots had strapped to the snowmobile. He hands the first one to Steve and gestures to the truck, “Put that one in the cab, can’t afford to lose it to your infamous driving.”

Steve huffs out a laugh, shaking his head in confusion. He’s about to put the case on top of all the other stuff shoved into the space behind the seats when he does a double take, “Your toolbox?”

He looks over at Bucky securing the rest of the cases into the truck bed. Buck pauses briefly and raises an eyebrow at him. “Yep.”

Steve still stands dumbly by the open door, holding the case in both hands, examining it, “Don’t you need these for your arm?”

Bucky doesn’t bother to stop now. “Yep.” He detaches the holomap from the snowmobile and checks the timestamp at the bottom of the screen. 11:04. At this rate, they’re about an hour behind Red Wings’ path. He just hopes Howlie sends someone down to collect the snowmobile before the next flyby tomorrow morning. He leaves the keys in the ignition and moves around to the passenger side door, flinging it open. Before getting in he looks to Steve, still frozen beside the open driver’s door, “Well, come on punk! You waiting for an engraved invitation from Schmidt himself?” He ducks inside the truck, pulling the door closed behind him quickly before he can overthink on what is really happening.

Steve’s smile lights up the cab as he jumps back behind the wheel, placing the tool case with care on top of Peggy behind Bucky’s seat. He starts the engine back up, then turns to Bucky, taking his shaking hands in his. His mouth seems to open and close a few times, as though he doesn’t know what to say. Bucky smiles back fondly, squeezing his hand back. His nerves about leaving are already starting to fade. _There’s a first time for everything._ Steve pulls his hand forward so his knuckles brush that broad chest. He turns back to the front as they start driving and Bucky is inordinately pleased to see he’s wearing his jacket. In front of him, the fading souvenir of the Brooklyn Bridge sits on top of the dash. Bucky reaches out with his free hand to give it a shake and watches the little plastic flakes shimmer as they fall. Steve keeps Buck’s hand in his, held pressed to his chest as he drives. Bucky leans back in his seat, lulled by the rhythm of a strong, fearless heart and thinks _Home_.

 

 

_Fin de la Montaña._

  


**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Come find me on at [krycek-asks](https://krycek-asks.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.


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